Rebuilding the future
by Wisebeyondyears
Summary: How do the IC characters fair in the act of rebuilding Alagaesia. Hearts will be broken, lines will be crossed, battles will be waged, freedom will be gained and peace will follow. Yet the one man who was responsible for the downfall of the king has ceased to roam the lands he once called home. How will his story go and how will he cope out their, in the uncharted lands
1. Prologue

The world is moving on

It has been a few months since the king has been defeated and events in Alagaesia are moving apace. Eragon Shadeslayer, the first rider of the new age, has left Alagaesia to raise numerous dragons and rehabilitate the Eldunari. Departing eastward he, and the numerous elves and eldunari, seek new mighty lands perfect to shelter the birth of a new order, one more powerful than before yet less corrupt, for there is much wisdom there on board their tiny boat. Yet despite what he thinks might be a few months on a ship doing nothing before plunging into the challenge of building an entire city from scratch he is soon proved wrong,. The sane eldunari, realising that he is not a strong enough rider, embark him on a new training program dealing with all manner of things a head dragon rider should be proficient at. In an act of his own free will he takes upon the task, albeit with the help of the elves, to build three buildings. These will act as future waypoints for novice dragon riders journeying on their way to the dragon rider city that Eragon will eventually construct.

In his usual bumbling way, Eragon discovers through a misplaced foot, a secret chamber contianing documents that date back to the Elf-Dragon war, many of these documents are sought after and often detail of things and knowledge that have been lost for Aeons. Eragon not only has to deal with problems related to the present and future, but also from the past. He is thrown headlong in a race to contain an ancient evil, in order to do so he has to find a a person who is able to evade searching for extended periods of time. Evidence of an ancient empire, possibly even older than the elves themselves, is found, which details of their reign and the struggles they faced in maintaining peace and order. Much of it is written as the problems are not solved, suggesting that the problems they struggled with, are problems that could back and plague modern day Alagaesia.

Also joining his entourage at his dragon-rider city, albiet at a much later date, is Rhunon and Silvari the Enchantress. Once there, they forge and fashions things to protect and nurture the dragon-rider city. After decades of work, culminating in a titanic display of power, Rhunon and Silvari the Enchantress raise from scratch, an army of warriors, able to protect and serve the city to a great potential. Accompanying them are statues of enormous size, made in the replica of two members from each race, able to protect and defend from dragons. While also serving as transport, these statues when called upon, can rise up and defend the city from unimaginable threats, using their vast physical power to crush even the strongest of opponents.

But it will be long time before this comes to fruition for Eragon, and in the meantime many things could go wrong.

Arya and Firnen have adapted to their new positions with ease, settling in as if they had ruled for centuries. Their next project is the process of expanding their queendom's influence. Creating and allowing opportunities for the different kingdom's to interact with the Elves. Arya has started, with the help of Nasuada, to organize the games of competition. At times Firnen has seen Thorn off in the distance, but have had no contact between the two dragons. She is slowly recovering from the war which saw her murder, although not in cold blood, a dragon, one of the only things an elf would have second thoughts about doing. Not only did she have to do terrible acts to survive and ultimately rid Alagaesia of its tyrant king, she was also subject to many months of torture at the hands of Durza, a human who had been possesed by spirits of immense evil and power. Her people are also recovering from their decades long retreat into their forest, the decline of the dragons and by extent, through the dragon-rider pact, their race and a bloody war that ripped many families asunder, if not outright destroying them. Not in a hundred years have the elves had to deal with vast amounts of elven dead.

In the halls of stone, hidden from prying eyes in the Beor Mountains, Orik rules his own kingdom with the wisdom and power of Hrothgar, uniting the Clans in a common purpose to repopulate the Dwarves lands and usher them into a newfound age of wealth and peace. The dwarves have yet to have to their dragon egg hatch for them, but this is mainly because Arya and Firnen have not obliged to send the veritable legion of elves guarding the egss to the dwarven lands as of yet. The dwarves strive to make peace with the few Urgals they interact with, but old habits die hard and will die even harder if any scuffles involving urgals, and namely any other race occur. Complicating the dwarves precarious state is that a dwarven shade is soon to be loose, and the Raz'ac have been spotted near the ruins of Ithro Zhada, or more commonly known as Orthiad to the dwarves.

Urgals have with there newly granted land, erected villages like that of those found in the spine, weaving the tales of all that has happened in the Varden into their totem poles that they value so highly. Going so far as to grant Eragon, who succesfully saw them through one of the greatest trials of their people, the status of a dam and also weaving his story into the fabric which tells of events that have long been forgotten through word of mouth, only residing in the fabled pieces of cloth the urgals dearly treasure. Their race has striven to communicate with the other races much more but it will take a lot of time and effort to alleviate all the misunderstanding that has occurred between them and the other races. It will take more than shared blood and a few battles to alleviate all the problems, but salvation is not so far off in the distance that is unreachable and the Urgal race, at large, can only hope that one of their young is not foolish enough to challenge a member outside of their own race. So far there have been no incidents, as the previous war provided lots of opportunities to prove their honour but this will almost certainly not last long, with the new generation of Urgals needing to prove their worthiness and honour. The only hope is that their part in the dragon-rider pact will lessen their bloodthirstiness, and the annual games will provide ample opportunities to prove their honour. They are currently in negotiations with the Elves, humans and dwarves about the games, with Nar Garzhvog leading the efforts on behalf of the Urgal race, although it will be a few years before the games will be able to start.

The humans, both in Orrin's country and Nasuada's Empire, have striven to stay in contact with the other races, especially the dwarves. As of late, they have not been very successful in maintaing in contact with the elves as they are hard to communicate because of their magical wards around their beloved forrest, and not many elves have ventured beyond the borders instead preferring to recover from the horrors of the war. Which are all the more real and distressing considering they have had few skirmishes in the past 100 years that have resulted in elven deaths. The urgals have also been hard to stay in contact chiefly because they are undertaking a migration towards the plains that Nasuda granted them and they as of yet do not have a dedicated scrying mirror. Nasuada has settled into her role quite comfortably, she still takes Elva wherever she goes as the danger of Galbatorix's spies are still strong, but trade has boomed under her rule. Helen's and Jeod's golden orb, given to them by Eragon, has now been transformed into a vast amount of wealth and as of a result, they now own one of the biggest business's in the whole of Alagaesia, if not the biggest. The magicians are posing less of a threat with a new decree saying that all government figures must be trained to a partial degree in mental defence. There, however, have been a few rogue magicians and Tenga still remains on the loose. King Orrin sent his remaining army to Eoam to capture the city, which happened without a fight, as the lord realised it would be pointless to resist. Surda is now a more prosperous country with the addition of the new cities, almost as much as the empire itself.

Roran, although still grieving from Eragon's departure, has returned home to Carvahall and is participating in the reconstruction effort. His wife and daughter are in good health, and once the town is finished, they will build the castle on top of that little bald hill, just as Roran dreamed in his childhood. Carvahall will be rebuilt to rival cities such as Tierm in granduer and architecture, borrowing ideas from the dwarven city Tronjheim and the elven city of Ellesmera. They will use the things they gained during their time with the Varden, such as allegiances and gold, to buy things needed to return Carvahall to a fully functioning town. But it will be many years before the villagers recover from their experiences in the war, if they ever do.

Roran, as well as probably many other men in the village, will continue to be plagued with nightmares about the men they killed and saw killed. The horrors of war, as Eragon so midly put it, slowly eat away at your soul till there is nothing left but a callous, cold hearted exterior. A vision of returning to a simple farming life, especially after the war they have done, might seem very pleasing, but it will be a lot harder to adjust knowing that you have taken part in a once in a lifetime opportunity let alone that you were in kill-or-be-killed-situations, and by the end of the war, if not by the first battle, you would have killed multiple people. While they may have had many unforgettable experiences that they would be more than likely want to forget, it also served to bind them with people they otherwise might not ever had met, providing a ever so small relief to the damages to the soul when you partake in war. It might even so happen that sometime in the near future, while Arya or other people are taking care of business near the spine, they might drop by and say hello, after all, what good are friends if you don't see them.

Considering their close proximity to Urgals, and their isolation, it is imperative that the villlagers of Carvahall co-operate with any Urgals they come across, as any skirmishes could quickly turn ugly without a higher power to settle dispites. Thankfully, the villagers of Carvahall are not overly prejudiced and they might even have a few friendly visits from Urgals and possibly make friends with some of the more restrained Urgals like Nar Garzhvog, stranger things have happened. If good things come to pass, and there is a decent chance of that happening, the urgals may even form a lasting bond with the Villagers of Carvahall.

Murtagh, having fled Alagaesia for good, well at least for the time being, has now settled in the icy hills north of Du Weldenvarden. He is using the time granted by his self-imposed exile to come to grips with himself about what he did in the course of the war and his life, for never before has he been granted such a long moment of peace, although this could soon to be cut short by his fateful dwelling next to a house of horrors, of which time and most of Alagaesia has forgotten about. Throughout the many years that they will stay there, in that isolated castle buffeted by the icy cold and strong winds, Thorn and Murtagh will come to grips with their ordeal with Galbatorix but they will never be completely healed. It will be many years before they even think of going Eragon's dragon rider city, and many more after that before they contemplate visiting Alagaesia, certainly enough time for the majority of the races to forget their emnity towards him.

After leaving from the river just outside of Urabaen, he slowly made his way north, taking several months to do so. His enhanced journey time, was not only augmented by his slow pace but also the fact that he had to avoid the warded portions of the Elven forest, which took him well out of his way and comprised of the majority of his journey. It took him a considerably lesser amount of time to find a suitable place to settle down, although he did have to consider the added criteria of having a relatively flat open space where he could also eventually build a castle with relative ease. Little does he know that while building his castle he will receive a visit from a strange person who may or may not have known Eragon, and will play a pivotal role in the years to come.

**A/N This is my first story and I am not very good at English either, although I am an English native speaker. That said however, reviews are always welcome, it does not matter whether they are positive or negative. Feel free to leave questions in the reviews or PM me. This story is about the rebuilding of life in Alagaesia, and in Eragon's case, beyond. I will try to keep this as canon as possible, but I will eventually in due course make mistakes, feel free to point them out. Plot included!**


	2. Much ado about meetings

**Much ado about meetings**

The Talita slowly glided across the serene waters of the Edda River meanwhile overhead, high above the ship, a dragon slowly circled the ship, using periodic updrafts to maintain its altitude. From the prow of the boat you could just see the sparkling blue scales that covered the entirety of the dragon's body, reflecting moonlight from above. If the moonlight reflected in a certain way, you could see that the dragon often turned its head and watched the ship below it float across the water. Then again it could be a trick of the light, for what would cause such a noble creature to often look down upon a small ship, something obviously very dear to it.

On board the ship, some standing in plain view and some hidden away from view, were 31 humanoid sentient beings, and an uncountable amount of enormously beings hidden away. Some tucked away in pockets of space, some resting in specially built holders, while others could be seen resting on deck of the Talita, with some elves laying hands on them. Obviously in attempt to communicate with whatever beings were hidden away inside those enormous stones, that seemed to emit a soft coal like glow, which appeared to flow from the centre of the stone.

One of the elves, if he could be called that, stood apart, at the prow of the ship. Nobody made any move to attempt to approach him, instead preffering to leave him to his thoughts. Upon the wooden planks he stood, watching with heavy eyes the course of the river before him. Many of elves, for they were tall, of a fair build and possesed pointed ears, appeared to be statues, watching with glazed eyes as the landscape passed by. It was only through the slightest hints of body language that they appeared to also be keeping a wary eye out for any harm or trouble that might befall them. Thus the man at the prow of the ship stood for hours deep in thought, lifting his gaze whenever something interesting appeared. He did this with such precision that one would think that he had another set of eyes that nobody else could see.

Many hours had passed since Arya and Firnen had left the elves to their thoughts and by the time any signifigant movement was made on the ship, the moon was already starting to sink towards the horizon. One of the elves, more wolfish in appearance than the others, who was clearly important, started, and after a moments hesitation, slowly went around the ship, asking a select few elves something as he did so. After a few moments it became apparent that the wolfish elf had summoned them to a meeting at the stern of the ship. As he walked up to the bow, his movements became more hesitant; his initial power seemed to quail before the man upon the prow of the ship. Summoning up his courage, the wolfish-in-appearance elf seemed to quickly enquire if the man on the prow would join them for their meeting.

The man obviously thought the matters were of importance, for he slowly took off his hood, turned around to face the wolfish elf and nodded. To an experienced observer it was now made apparent that he was more of a hybrid breed than an actual elf or man. They walked side by side to the stern of the ship, stopping to direct the sentinel-like elves into position, who obeyed them without question, once again showing that they had enormous authority. Once they had dished out their orders they each took a seat upon the table anchored to the wooden planks of the deck below. The man at the head, and the elf on his right hand side. Sitting before them were 10 elves whose nobility and wisdom surpassed that of many men combined. Suddenly the wolfish elf, who possesed a brilliant coat of blue-black fur, started speaking, raising the others from their self-induced thoughtful stupors.

(Perspective Change(Third person to First Person)

Eragon looked around, and saw that many of elves appearance, even though they did not show signs of age easily, showing signs of being subject to the passing of numerous years. He sat at the head of the table, with Yaela on his left and Blodhgarm on the right, not because of his power or his deeds although that certainly did play a part, but because of who he was. He was the first truly free dragon rider to be born in over a century, his strength and knowledge, allowed him to do what others could not, although he was not the strongest in either field by far.

His blend of power and knowledge allowed him to succeed in defeating the evil king Galbatorix, take part in the destruction of two Shades, although this deed was by no means entirely his, and slay the two remaining Razac's and their steeds, the winged Lethrblaka. Even though he had help, it did not diminish the greatness of these accomplishments. In fact, he had slowly started to realise, it demonstrated how good he was at fighting beside people he knew well. He roused himself as Blodhgarm started to speak, taking into account every word. At first they started to discuss what would make a good dragon hold, almost everyone agreed that it would have to be in a mountain range for a number of different reasons, but from there they differed. Many of the elves were of the opinion that they should find an island, like Vroengard, but others said it might take too long and the eggs needed to hatch. At times they consulted with the Eldunari, and once with Saphira, when she offered her opinions, but since the elves were the ones that would be actually building their new home they needed to discuss how they might go about it and what building techniques would be needed for different ideas.

Slowly, the topics drifted, each member having their say, only excusing themselves to do their business. It was just after the sun rose, and the landscape was dotted with numerous hills, small swathes of forest and a few animals that he interrupted their conversation about the amount of buildings needed to be built, in order to raise something that had recently come to mind. "_How would the riders find us_" he said "_if all we do is tell them that we are in a far off land and expect them to find us, that reeks of a disaster in the making._" This swiftly prompted a heated debate; it was not until a few minutes that Umaroth interrupted and voicing his thoughts to everyone, he said "_Listen to Yaela_." Yaela then spoke up for the first time in a while, she proposed that instead of continuing on our journey we should stop at the first good resting place and design a shelter for dragon riders coming our way, which could be maintained by visitors.

As he listened to Yaela speak, he, and many of the other elves he noticed, started to warm up to her proposal. After due consideration, and much communication with the Eldunari, they agreed that they would construct a place that would allow dragon riders to rest along their way. It would provide food, water and safety from whatever perils might fall their way. Noticing that many of the elves were as tired as he was, he instructed them to get some rest before they landed. After he had packed up from the meeting he spent about 10 minutes consulting with the sane Eldunari, and then used the rest of the hour to help out with some of the elves who were trying to make the life of the Eldunari

Calling out to Saphira, he swam to the side of the bank where he stood, waiting for his lifelong companion. As she descended from the stars, he noticed that she was also looking rather tired as well as sad. Although from his tenuous mental connection he shared with her, he noticed that she had mainly used updrafts to sustain her flight. She landed in front of him with a thud, and with a huge sapphire eye, eyed him in a very protective manner. He shivered with excitement as she opened her mind to his, and his to hers. She was pawing the ground excitedly, causing to eragon to slightly stumble as the ground vibrated, she asked "W_ould you like to fly little one" _to which he responded _"Of course_."

As the hour approached since he had left the Talita, Saphira with her keen eyes, and the sun high up in the sky, had earmarked out a bend in the river about 3 kilometres ahead that had a slow flowing section, which would help ships disembark easily. Closing his eyes, he reached out into the vast void with my mind. Singling out Blodhgarm's mind amongst those of the elves proved easy enough, but resisting the temptation to lose himself in his mind proved much harder. He then quickly informed him of what he saw and remarked that "_Saphira and I would like stake out the location, we will see you in a short while._" He then ended the conversation, by the time of which, Saphira was in the middle of a full blown dive towards the bend. Extending her wings she came to a sharp stop and glided softly down to the ground. Exhilarated from the dive he loosened the straps which held hime in and jumped down upon the bank, ready to embark on his first building project for the new dragon rider order.

**A/N Please review, anything is helpful although constructive criticism. Every chapter I will at least try to answer questions posed in the reviews or questions sent to me through PM's. As of when I updated this, my main plot will be the rebuilding of everything, and the secondary plot line will be the unnamed shadow. **

**Issues addressed this chapter(feel free to point out anymore):**

**PoV change**

**PoV perspective**

**Edited some spelling mistakes**

**Lengthened it a bit**

**Thank you and see you for next time (read the following information only if you want too)**

**P.S. I will try to be a responsive writer, so feel free to ask any questions, and will credit people for ideas. By the way, some of the idea's I got from some other stories, but I did add my own twist on them. So if they appear a little like anyone's story, I will try to credit them with the idea. I have read a lot of fan fiction so will not remember where I got some of my ideas from. Oh, and please provide a name or a link for the story as otherwise I cannot credit them. **

**P.P.S. Thank you to Green fire for my first review (and maybe my first follow/favourite) if not, thank you anyway. **


	3. A fiiting place for a storyteller

A fitting place for a storyteller

Eragon stood back and admired their progress, together with the help of the Eldunari, he and the elves had created the first room. It possessed certain elegance in its design, that only the buildings found in Ellesmera could hope match. Even though the room's layabout was quite simple and plain, it took much strength and singing to grow the four trees that stood in every corner of the room. They towered over the rest of the room, their lower canopies forming the ceiling, yet despite this there was easily enough room for Saphira to walk around the room.

Once they had finished singing the trees into shape, they moved onto the walls. This is where they had run into some problems; nobody had any idea what they should be made of. They neither had the time or the energy to make the trees into actual rooms. It was not until Eragon suggested they should be made of dirt, and bushes be grown to hide the dirt, that everyone voiced their thoughts. This continued on for some minutes until they decided that they would cover the dirt with stones, and then grow the bushes around them. While they were doing this, two elves went out towards the river and created a channel with magic, that could bring fresh water to the settlement. In the corner furthest from the entrance, they dug a hole in the ground which would serve as a drinking place for dragons stopping by, and next to it, a small basin of water a meter off the ground for their respective rider. After everyone had finished their respective jobs, they created a small armoury; a supply cupboard, a toilet for the riders and an equipment cupboard, each of these were sung into each of the four trees.

This took him back to the present, many of the elves were looking a little bit shaken, but he was not about to allow that to get in the way of his overall design. He separated the elves into four groups and instructed them to build one room each, in a square array, with a hallway big enough to accommodate a dragon between them. Then he and Saphira, along with Glaedr's wisdom and memories, started to construct the first test of the riders. By the time they had finished their efforts, it was night again and Eragon was shaking with exhaustion, relief came over as Umaroth fed him a tendril of energy. Eragon started to thank him but Umaroth interrupted him saying "_It is a pleasure, Kingkiller, think nothing of it, now let us see what you have constructed, and if you have put our energy to good use." _Eragon opened his mind, allowing the numerous Eldunari to see what he saw. In front of him was a stone statue of Brom, with all his likeness, and standing next to him was his dragon Saphira, reconstructed from Glaedr's memories. But instead of stone for eyes, there were brilliant gems, taken from some of the stores on the boat. He had fashioned enchantments to derive energy from the tree's in order to keep the place in order, and offer stores of energy to passing riders.

Regaining control of his body for a fraction of a second he spoke in the ancient language "_Argetlam, Bjartskular, mor'amr gata_" and Brom and Saphira started to contort to form a cave big enough to hold a dragon. The pedestal forming the floor of the cave, to which Umaroth remarked "_Pretty, but I fail to see the point of this._" Regaining control of his body for the second time, he took a small rock from his rock and used the spell of instant teleportation. Umaroth and the other Eldunari watched, through his eyes, as the rock which he had previously held, began to reform in the chamber soundlessly. It was then that Valdr spoke up "I am astounded at this" he nervously fidgeted as Valdr took his time to construct his next sentence, this caused Eragon to be startled when Valdr started praising him by saying "_Never has an elf, rider or dragon thought of this, you should be proud of what you accomplished today, this will ensure that things do not go awry, even in the worst of circumstances_." He then withdrew from his mind slightly as they toured what the elves had accomplished, two bedrooms for the riders and their dragons, a dining and kitchen area and finally a room dedicated to activites that used the mind. This contained two desks, a library, with bookshelf's waiting to be filled, a bathtub tucked away in the corner, inside one of the trees, a normal scrying mirror and in the centre of the room stood another stone pedestal, this one however, had gems ringing the edges. This caused to Saphira who was helping the elves build a stone wall around their settlement, and partly connected to Eragon's mind, roar out in anger. _"What are you thinking", _her words reverberating in his head with stunning force, "_I have seen your memories of your time in the circle-of-hell Dras Leona, I know what this is, how could you do this when you yourself have experienced this thousand-needle pain, explain yourself."_

It took a moment for him to gather his thoughts, while he was doing this he noticed through his tenuous link to Saphira's mind that many of the elves had rushed to her side, except for Blodhgarm and Yaela who he thought were observing their mental conversation. Brushing that aside, he calmly explained to Saphira that "_This is not designed, and cannot even be used, to imprison someone to be tortured" _to which Saphira responded with a mental version of a snort, "_rather it offers someone to experience scrying in 3D, once you are done with constructing the outside wall I will show it to you in action_." He waited for a few minutes, until Saphira contacted him, "_Little one,_ _I am ready; I hope for your sake that this works as you say it will._" Not bothering to reply but keeping their mental link open, he stepped onto the pedestal, acutely aware of how closely everyone was studying his actions and spoke the words for a variant of scrying, his magic reaching out through the hundreds of leagues that separated him from Nasuada's scrying room.

Murtagh slowly trundled up the hill with a bunch of firewood; all around him were the signs of a harsh winter, snow was piled up in mounds to the side of the track, the few trees that could be seen had no leaves and worst of all was the ever present blanket of clouds that kept the sun from producing all of but the dimmest light. As he reached the top of the hill, he stopped as he realized two things, firstly the sun was already beginning to set, winter days up in the north were short, and secondly, much more worryingly, was that Thorn was nowhere to be seen.

It was then at that moment an unusually large snow mound nearby, next to the castle foundations, exploded, sending snow everywhere with enough force to knock him down, if it had not been for his wards. "_Surprise"_ said Thorn, as Murtagh slowly picked up the firewood he had dropped. "_You need to be more aware of your surroundings" _continued Thorn "_one does not simply go walking around places with their eyes closed and expect to come to no harm, otherwise how would you recognise the time to swoop down and abduct Nasuada. Thorn" _said Murtagh warningly, but Thorn continued unabated _"how do you think Eragon would have killed Galby if all the eyes he had were for Arya." _Murtagh, seized by annoyance, harshly responded "_If Eragon had any eyes, he would have noticed from day one that the only reason Arya even started to like him was through his bumbling heroics and never ending determination, combined with his obvious foolishness, to make the situation as dangerous as possible. And for the last time he is not King Galby." _Thorn realising that he had gone too far, did not deign to respond, which only furthered Murtagh's temper. With conversation effectively killed, they continued onto the temporary home they had made until their castle was finished.

As he waited for the water to heat up, he admired the way the few remaining rays of sun light up the base of the castle. When they had first arrived here a month ago, winter was in full swing, blizzards daily, high winds and no sun. While they were flying through the mountains, they spotted a cave, and after killing its permanent resident, a shrrg. As they waited out the blizzard they had decided that this would be as good as any spot they were likely to find in the next few days, and so began their preparations to build a majestic, albeit reclusive, castle. This included furnishing the cave to make it liveable, removing the bones of dead animals from the Shrrg's den and drawing into the rock, as they had no paper, their plans. It was once that this was done and the weather was finally starting to calm down, that they decided to rest. For Murtagh, and Thorn as well, they thought it was well deserved, but fate had a way of making life miserable. For when they were sharing dream-space, they had a premonition.

_The sky was a bright blue, below them were the clouds, or they were until Thorn started to plummet, apparently not of his own volition. As they rapidly approached the ground Thorn slowed, the result of a spell. Ahead of them were two stone statues of dwarves, big as two houses stacked on top of each other and as well as possessing an uncanny familiarity, but that was not the odd bit, as Thorn touched the ground, the eyes of the dwarf's sparkled ,for they were made of gems, and lit up. The statues came alive as they stepped forward and took up arms, two large hammers. The ground shuddered as the statues advanced upon them. Then as they were only a hundred metres away, something large blotted out the sun and made a furious roar that not even Shruikan could hope to match._

Murtagh, after seeing this had awoke with a shock, the image of the two dwarven statues advancing upon him, burned in his mind. Thorn, beside him, seemed utterly confounded as well; it was not until a few minutes that they started to discuss what had happened. As the days lengthened, they continued to brood upon this, but gradually they came to the conclusion that there was no point fretting, whatever come would come and there was nought they could do, short of killing themselves, to stop it.

**A/N Hello reader(s), I hope you are having a good day and here is the next chapter in my Post-Inheritance story. Please review, guests can review as well, there is a space down the bottom for reviews. I am not sure whether I should try to do a chapter in Arya's POV or even Firnen's POV, although I think Arya's point of view would be harder. As you get an idea in Inheritance how dragons think but not elves. In the next chapters, and hopefully the whole book, I will get more conversations, whether it is physical or mental, in. I also hope to get a plot going, though the next chapter will still probably be setting the scene for my story. I would like some feedback in how you think I should continue this story. **

**The next chapter will probably be in Nasuada's POV or Eragon's POV, maybe both. I might go back and edit the prologue, as it is not how I would like it, I will add a bit about Murtagh's experiences in the far north although it might not be set in the same timeline as the rest of the story. Can anyone pick up the movie reference I made, anyway, thanks for reading and please review.**

**P.S. I will explain things in later chapters that I did not include here, for example the statue of Brom and Saphira will have more to it than just serving as a teleportation platform. Something to do with a test for the riders. **


	4. A shade or two darker

A shade or two darker

Nasuada leaned back, after a particular long and tiring meeting with the Arya, Orik, Nar Garzhvog and Orrin, they still had many things to overcome in order to start the inaugural triennial games. They had decided, after much debating and trying to appease Orrin, although to his credit he remained relatively open-minded, the order of rotation for the games would be in Farthen Dur, then the following games would be held just outside Aberon, in a stadium yet to be constructed, or even financed, and for the last games, it would be co-hosted by the Urgals and the Elves near Ceunon. For the elves would not allow anyone in their forest as of yet, except for the most important of people, and the Urgals were hardly in the position to be organising an event, after their perpetual harassment by both the fallen empire and the now disbanded Varden.

It had been especially difficult for Queen Arya and the elves in general, to stay in contact with the rest of Alagaesia, as their wards around their Forrest stopped items entering through magical means. This was also combined with the fact that they were in the process of strengthening their magical borders. According to the report she had just picked up, many of the elves were taking part in a mass effort to sing, whatever that meant, a new elf as guardian of the Forrest. Apparently, they had done this before with some elf called Gilderien the wise, who watched over Ellesmera since the days of Du Fyrn Skulblaka. Setting the report aside she cast her thoughts of the month ahead, dreading the prospect of having to go tell the Northern cities that they could no longer cut down trees in Du Weldenvarden. As she brooded over these miserable thoughts she wished things could have been a little more interesting and exciting lately, she had received next to no news from Eragon, Orik was busy dealing with clans in an attempt to expand their kingdom's influence and Arya was still trying to convince the many elf lords that they needed to be more open to the other races. She was broken out of her reverie by a page, who had been stationed to the scrying room, call out "_Nasuada, Your majesty, Eragon is scrying us."_

Nasuada quickly combed her hair and made herself presentable, she wanted to make sure that she conveyed a good impression to Eragon, so that he did not worry himself about her troubles more than necessary, which knowing him seemed more than likely. She did not like that he was going away but the longer she thought about it the more it seemed necessary, where would they settle for a start. The Beor Mountains would be perfect except for the fact that the dwarven clans were in a state of uproar about being not consulted with when Eragon reworked the dragon-rider pact. The spine was near too many races for the dragons to be safe and the hardarac desert would hardly be suitable for raising small dragons. As she reached the scrying room she saw her earlier worries had been dispelled, Eragon had already started building but then she realised that this was not it. Her train of thought was interrupted by the very man who was scrying her.

_"My majesty, I take it that you are still alive and well, it is good to see you again, long time no see" _Eragon started off by saying but she just brushed him off replying _"We are still friends why must we talk so formal, tell me, what has happened?" _ As she waited for him to formulate his answer, she cast her eyes upon the rest of the building, a few desks were arranged against the wall, an empty library and strangely enough, another scrying mirror, just as she was about to ask him about that, her train of thought was knocked off the tracks for the second time as Eragon enlightened her on his miniature project. He then, with some words of power, showed her what it was like in the rest of the complex, projecting his memories upon something which she could not see. As time wore on, and they exchanged pleasant chit-chat, she began to yawn, at first she was able to stifle them so Eragon was unable to notice them, but eventually he noticed her attempts and bid her goodnight. Yawning constantly, she walked to her chambers, plunked down on her bed and fell asleep.

Cursing his stupidity, Orik got up as the sun rose and prepared for another long meeting with the clans. He should have prepared a notice about the dragon rider order including the dwarves, but in his haste to catch Eragon one last time before he left he had forgotten about it until it was too late and the clans were in full uproar. He had neglected his rightful duty and now he was paying the price. As he walked to the chambers, where the days meetings were being held, he suddenly noticed that his guard had been doubled, and there were many more magicians now. Turning to his second-in-command, General Isidar, he was about to ask the meaning of this but before he could he was bundled off into a nearby hallway, perpendicular from where he wanted to go. His frantic efforts to escape were stopped as another dwarf, in addition to the two ones that were already holding him, joined them in restraing him. As they reached an open space, one of the dwarves pulled on a lever behind a stone and behind them the boom of falling stone could be heard.

It was then that the 20 or so dwarves that had escorted him to this place finally started to relax. As one of their numbers produced a light and lit one of the lanterns he quickly looked around for escape routes. It then hit him that the rest of the clan leaders were here as well and many of them looked grave faced. Ignoring this latest surprise, he rounded on the general and employed his favourite curse "_Barzul,_ _You have much to answer for, why have you done this treacherous act", _yet to this, the general to his credit, just indicated for him to sit down and then said no more. "_As I was saying before King Orik so impolitely interrupted us" _said Nado, the words dripping out of his mouth like molten lead, to which he was about to protest too, not ready to lose his dignity at the hands of his arch-enemy, until Nado silenced him with a look of contempt. _"We have received, and I say this in utter serious, report of a shade, of dwarven appearance, a raz'ac and another terrible being, which has yet to be named. All the reports came from trustworthy sources and they have consented for their minds to be examined, as of yet our magicians have yet to find anything out of order, but we must pray that they do, for otherwise we have a very dangerous situation." _

As Orik sank back into his seat at the full implications of this, the other clan leaders who had already received this news were already discussing what to do. As the many hours passed by, alerts were issued to the other races and other dwarven cities as the news seemed more and more likely to be true, it was not until a few hours past midday that they received news of the mental inspection results. The messenger, a young dwarf by the name of Murdak, announced to a nervous audience the thing they had all been waiting for "_The magicians found something out of order in their minds" _pausing as they released a sigh of relief _"but only that the dwarf failed to mention, or even notice the second raz'ac in the background when he saw the first one." _As a collective groan went up from the dwarves arrayed around the table, he quickly took his leave, exiting out the same way he came in.

At least, on reflection after the meeting had been ended, they had had enough sense to construct stone doors to block off all avenues of exits in the dwarven cities after the war with Galbatorix had finished. This had been done as a precautionary measure, in order to protect against another case like the Urgal invasion. As they had contacted the various realms and races of Alagaesia King Orik could not help but shamefully think that the Dwarves, one of the oldest races in Alagaesia, had created another monster on the eve that another was defeated. Such was the strength of this failure that he had felt that it was necessary for him to convey the messages himself; risking his life to do so, as the shade had been seen just outside of Farthen Dur, the raz'ac outside Orthiad, or Ithro Zhada as the king had called it, although this was less of a threat, and the unnamed shadow had been seen near the bear tooth river. As Orik informed the Urgals of what had happened he could not help but think that if all these monsters had been near the Urgals homeland, the Urgals would have stood no chance, the only ones at the moment who had the chance of being able to defeat a shade were the elves and from what he had seen of shades and elves, they would even be hard pressed to kill one.

Arya glanced around at the elven lords seated in a rough circle in the clearing; she had just finished convincing them that it would be necessary to send an envoy of elves to clean up the remnants of damage that Galbatorix had done to Illirea and to help set up Nasuada's new magical authority, which would know span all the races and encompass every magician. It had taken many hours of debating to bring everyone round to the same viewpoint, and even then she could feel that many of the elves were still only half-convinced. It was like trying to deal with a pack of wolves, every time she tried to do something or get out of her metaphorical tree, where she was safe, they threatened to rip her apart. She just wished she had somebody to talk to originally it had been Brom, then as they went their separate ways she found solace with Faolin, his death had wounded her to her core, after that it had been Ajihad and then Eragon and Saphira.

Her feelings for Eragon were too complicated to be summed up in a simple man's terms. At first she had been thankful that he had saved her, but gradually through his foolishness, she had realised that he was thinking of her in a romantic way. Because of this she had shunned him, yet he still persisted in his futile attempts at romance, finally when he had made a fairth of her that portrayed her as much as his ideal imagination as actually herself, she had rejected him outright, perhaps a little too harshly. Yet to his credit, where other men would have given up, he still persisted although perhaps in a less direct way. Determination, she mused, was one of his main redeeming qualities, once he was started on a course he would not stop, except of his own volition or Saphira's intervention. As she gotten to know him more after the battle of the burning plains, she had started to realise that he was a very good person, a much better person than many of the elves were, although a lot more prone to stupidity, and some would suggest dim-wittedness. As they had made their way to Ura'baen, they had gradually moved closer together to the point where she could call him a friend, not her best one, but a friend nonetheless. Then in a feat of sheer audacity, they had killed the most powerful beings in Alagaesia, but instead of many years of rejoicing as it should have been, he had cut short his celebrations to what he thought was truly necessary to do, leave Alagaesia, possibly forever, and raise the dragons.

Shortly after he had told her of this, he had made a fairth that truly encompassed her, including her faults as well as her perfection, seeing this she knew she had finally found someone again who understood her. Knowing that this was a life-changing moment she had told him her true name, and he had told her his. After Eragon had left she was starting to realise how big a part of her life he was. In a similar way to how he was essential to Glaedr's recovery, he was a focal point for her emotions she had something other to do than grieve. For too long she had put her people before her emotions, and it was starting to show, she had only realised after he had gone that she had non-romantic feelings, or its elven equivalent, for him. The only reason she had continued to function after so many losses was the fact that she had been bonded to Firnen and now was her replacement for Eragon. For her she thought, her life had been a series of people being replaced, either through death or duty, the one word that she was starting to dislike. Shaking off her unpleasant thoughts, she returned to the present to find the elven meeting in much the same state as before, only now that a huge green dragon was perched on top of one of the trees. Clapping her hands, she signalled that the meeting would be continued another time and quickly scaled the tree that her bonded partner was perched on. As she climbed into Firnen's saddle, she opened her mind up to his and they rejoiced in the intimate feeling of connectedness, feeling as one as they withheld nothing from each other.

As Firnen launched them into the sky, sending a hail of small twigs and leaves down onto the clearing she rejoiced in the feeling of openness, that one feels when they are in the sky. As Firnen climbed in altitude and made his way to the Crags of Tel'naeir, she slowly took in Ellesmera upon high, it was beautiful, although much of it could not be seen due to the trees blocking the view. Closing her eyes, she entered her partners mind and viewed the world the way he viewed it, the greens were much more prominent than the reds and the blues, although this was probably due to the fact that he was a green dragon. His vision was a lot sharper than hers but had a narrower focus. As they glided down, a perfect image of harmony, she realised now that she was the most powerful two-legged one, as Firnen would call them, in Alagaesia. Her strength surpassed that of many beings. The only people who could match her blow for blow would be other elves, the most ferocious of Kull, a few dwarves and maybe a few werecats. Her magical knowledge was unrivalled except for Angela and Tenga, although she did not know the extent of his powers it would be probably be safe to say that he was unrivalled in terms of skill, being the teacher of Angela. Plus the fact that she was also queen of the elves, the strongest race, and had a dragon to back her up, left little to the imagination of who was the powerhouse now that Eragon and Saphira had left.

After she had fallen asleep and entered into dream space, her dreams began to shift erratically, jumping from one to the next, until they settled on one that looked so lifelike that her subconscious had to remind her about what was real.

_She rode Firnen through the skies of Du Weldenvarden; below her a host of elves, between 50 and 100 strong, marched along a small track that wandered between the trees below. As they reached the edge of the forest, they glided down, and landed in a nearby clearing. In front of them was the edge of the elves territory, as well as a shade and numerous ferocious looking big, black dogs. The shade looked exactly like Varaug and Durza, but instead of a sword he held a spiked mace made out of the same material that Niernen had been made out. As the shade advanced the whole forest suddenly shook with anger, and above it a green light appeared which soon engulfed everything. _

**A/N Hello, I hope you are having a good day. I know this chapter jumps around a lot in terms of POV but I really saw no way to get the basic underlying plot/problem across. The problem is that I do not know how to tell the story without it becoming too monotonous, any help you could offer would be appreciated. I might be able to post another chapter by the weekend but I am not completely sure as this story is already affecting my ability to get homework in on time. Onto other things, enough time spent telling you about my problems, now I will provide some (hopefully somewhat helpful) information about the story itself. **

**The shade mentioned in Arya's dream will be very powerful, and it will take a lot of power to defeat him. There are two different shades by the way, just to make more trouble. I am not sure when the eggs will hatch for the Urgals or dwarves, but probably after things have been sorted out. As to the timing of it, Nasuada's experience is a few days before Orik, and Arya's is around the same time as Orik's. If you have any queries feel free to put them in the reviews or PM. Anyway, thanks for reading, reviewing (hopefully) and taking time out of your busy lives to read my story.**

**P.S. I will try to get another chapter up by the end of the weekend**


	5. Humbling Experiences

Humbling experiences

As he explained to Saphira why the 3D scrying did not work, he watched as some of the elves pack up the equipment and supplies and put it back on the Talita. For the little ship had been tethered to the river bank. Beside it was a small dock that was in the process of being created by the remaining elves in order to provide a shelter for small boats. After this had been finished, Eragon strode over to Blodhgarm who had been supervising the elves work, and told him "_Blodhgarm, I wish for you and the Alfakyn to continue on down the river, Saphira and I will stay behind, we need to attend to something important, we will catch up later." _Although he could see that Blodhgarm was practically bursting with questions he refrained from asking them, saying only "_Shadeslayer" _accompanied with a curt nod. He then loosened the rope holding the Talita to the shoreline, and then leaped over the ships railing, and landing with inhuman grace. Eragon could see the elves staring at him and then plying Blodhgarm with questions. Eragon hated being so secretive around the elves but he and the Eldunari were of the opinion that the less people who knew the word of the ancient language, and were even aware that there was one, was better.

As Eragon flied through the skies with his partner of heart and mind, Saphira, he reflected if he had actually covered everything that would allow everything in his self-sufficient settlement to stay the same. When the elves had passed out of elven earshot, which was no short distance, Eragon had immediately started preparing the sentences that he would need to ward the settlement from damage, keep people from committing wanton acts of destruction and protect the settlement from other forms of harm. He had then used the word of the ancient language and a wordless spell to ensure that no-one, not even Murtagh or Arya, could interfere with the enchantments as long as there was a source of energy. For this he had fashioned numerous other spells to draw energy from the trees, store them into gems which would then provide energy for the enchantments that he had fashioned. All this had been done with the help of Glaedr's and Umaroth's help. As he reflected on this he noticed that Glaedr and Umaroth were talking to the other Eldunari, but before he enquired Umaroth interrupted him and said something totally unexpected. _"For the past half hour we have been discussing to do with your current state. We do not mean to be harsh but we have to speak our minds" _here Umaroth paused for a little while as if expecting backlash, "_you are not a strong enough rider to be considered a teacher" _before he started to protest, Umaroth continued saying "_You can voice your objections later, but for now listen to me. We, and this was no easy decision, have decided that you must embark on a new training program, 8 hours daily, covering the five aspects we have deemed most important, use of the ancient language and magic, strength, flexibility, intelligence and mental strength. You will continue with this until we disembark at our new destination. _

_"You will start off the day by doing the Dance of the snake and the crane, and then you will spar with Blodhgarm and the other elves for two hours. Then you will need to write, speak and go over the ancient language for an hour, followed by two hours of mental combat in which you will face off against me and some of the other Eldunari, until you can hold your own. As your body grows tired we will then teach you all that you have not been taught yet. Then finally, you will develop more muscle than other elves, in order to be stronger and faster, and while you are doing this we will devise spells to increase the strength of your body so that you can do things that nobody else will be able to do." _ It took Eragon a while to convince Umaroth to start the next day, but he eventually succeeded, then as the sun was setting over the river Edda, they all decided that they needed rest, and thus the Eldunari took watch over the uncharted landscapes.

Eragon awoke with a startle; somebody was interfering with his mind. "_Rise and shine, little one" _voiced Saphira in his mind, "_Today you are starting your routine." _ With a groan, he got out of bed, and got dressed putting on some clothes that would be suitable for the day ahead. Walking up to the ships stern, which was the only reasonably large flat space on the ship, he passed by numerous elves who were still sleeping and recovering from yesterday's work. Not wanting to disturb them he tiptoed past them until he reached the place where he was to start his training. As Eragon slipped into a reverie as he slowly went through the Dance of the snake and crane, he heard a roar and saw that Saphira was constantly breathing fire while she flew. As he extended a tendril of mind to calm her down, he noticed that her mind was not full of anger but of concentration, realising that she was doing training as well; he quickly returned to his own mind and fell back into his own self-induced trance as he completed the Rimgar up to level three. It was then that Umaroth stopped him as he said "_You have done it well up to this point, let us be content with that for the moment, now you must spar with the other elves, and not just with swords, but with hands, feet and other weapons such as maces. Even though I find that maces are abhorrent, they do make good weapons and it is almost certain that some of the Urgals will use them. You do not want them to be teaching you how to fight with a mace or a club. In addition, you will also need to wear your armour when fighting to become one with it. _

As Eragon finished up his strength training, he looked back on his day. It had been one of the hardest days training yet, including the ones before the blood oath ceremony, when he had been beset with problems from his back. The hardest thing he thought wryly was not the pain and sore muscles that he had accumulate, but the fact that his mind had been bruised, battered, and otherwise thrown around like a plaything. Umaroth and the others had centuries of training their minds, enormous strength and wisdom to match, meant that he had simple been outclassed. But as he neared the end of his allotted two hours he started to notice that he was able to hold off Umaroth for more than a few seconds. After this he had had time for a quick break for lunch, and after that it was back to the training. The only positives that he could see so far of the second session were that Glaedr had started to teach him of all living things. As per his promise on the way to Vroengard, where he had said that he would teach them about many living things, including the many species of beetle of which there are multitudes. And secondly, the second session was a lot shorter than the first, but the negatives were too numerous to count for that matter though.

It was then, when he had finished clearing the stern up and the sun was setting, he noticed that the river was slowly becoming wider. Warning the other elves of what was happening; he leaped up into the air, then propelling himself with magic and Saphira's unspoken consent as she flew beneath him he landed on her back. As they circled around the ship and the sun wasted away, just before the land was cast into darkness he spotted a small ruined town made out of stone.

Orik glanced around the table, many of the dwarves had disappeared, probably sleeping or contacting others through scrying mirrors to hold counsels about what had happened. So far no news had been received about the Raz'ac or the unnamed shadow, but apparently there was going to be another shade on the loose soon. Arya, after flying out of Du Weldenvarden, and consulting with Nasuada about her vision which she had seen, had held a three way counsel with him on one end, and Nasuada and Arya on the other. It was there that they had learnt that about their newfound peril. From what information he had gleaned from her otherwise unreadable face, she did not care much for the Raz'ac, for she had said herself that they were too young to breed, and the fact that they could not control magic would make it easy to kill them once they found them. But the news of another shade was troubling, never before in recorded history had they had two shades around at the same time. Even a weak shade easily outclassed an elf in terms of strength and basically every attribute. But strong shades were even harder to deal with, some of them had the strength of numerous dragons, and even ones such as Oromis would have hesitated to take them on alone, from what he had gathered Oromis had been a very strong dragon rider. From what information he had gleamed from Arya's interpretation of her dream, it had sounded like this one could have matched Brom blow for blow when he was at his prime. Although Orik did not think much of this, and many of the other dwarves were perplexed by this comparison, as Brom did not appear to be strong, Arya reminded them that Brom had killed the most powerful Forsworn, Morzan, and his dragon as well.

It was this information that had put the whole of Alagaesia into lockdown, all the dwarven cities had closed their gates, the elves were not allowing anyone inside their realm for the time being while they had sorted out a plan for action and the humans were holing up in their stone cities, like a rabbit who cowers before a fox who is ripping its den open. After Arya had left, he and Nasuada had agreed that while elves may not think highly of Raz'ac, they were certainly strong enough to be a thorn in the side, to humans and dwarves alike. That is why Orik had dispatched a battalion, numbering 300 dwarves including 10 spell casters, from Dalgon to Orthiad, to deal with the problem. Nasuada had also sent a few hundred men from Petrovya to Orthiad to help the dwarves in their search. Although this had meant that he had had to dispatch another small group ahead of the main group to guide the humans through the dangerous ruins of Orthiad. This brought him back to the present as he nervously waited for news of success or failure from the corps of Dwarven magicians. He was expecting to be successful, as while they incapacitate men and dwarves with their foul breath, they did not have their steeds, the foul Lethrblaka, which were trouble on a whole new level. The Lethrblaka could only be killed by strong magicians, elves or dragons, none of which were present in any way, shape or form.

As the hours went by, many of the council members retired to mattresses which had been laid down on the floor at the edges of the cavern. From what he had gathered, it was just a few hours before dawn. He knew he really should get some sleep, or at least some rest, but his body was just too tense and it was expected that the results would be received within the next hour. After about half an hour, just as he was about to doze off a dwarven messenger came running in. Immediately, everyone, that is who were still awake, sprang up and a loud clatter echoed throughout the cavern. Out of breath, he started to gasp "_A report has come in that one of the Raz'ac has been killed" _with this news everyone in the chamber cheered with jubilation, waking the few dwarves who were still asleep. But he remembered that there had been two Raz'ac and was just about to ask what had happened to the second one but the messenger resumed speaking. "_However the other managed to escape but not before we injured him. His escape is not what worries us but the fact that he grabbed one of our magicians who had passed out from the exhaustion" _grimacing he looked around and saw that everyone else bore similar looks. Orik turned his head back to the speaker, as he said quietly, with all eyes fixed upon him, "_For in their folly they forgot to guard him and now they are paying the price, despite this we did not lose any troops. Although 3 of the men from Nasuada's were foolish enough to stray off the beaten track, and they fell into a tunnel below. As of now, they say they are attempting to rescue them. The Raz'ac did not inflict any casualties on humans; however they did injure many in their attempt to escape. Our magicians are attending to them as well as our own injured." _This had lightened the mood considerably but there was still a slight atmosphere of tension. The messenger summed up by saying "_The raz'ac are being tracked but have not been found as they have the strength of many men. The commander is confident, that they can find the remaining raz'ac as long as the rest of magicians stay alive. _

As he walked out to address the dwarves massed below him, he thought of all the times he had seen Eragon address the varden and how he feared it more than the battle. Now he was starting to understand, an enemy would quickly disembowel you if you did something stupid, but a crowd would slowly skin you alive for even the most innocent of remarks. Before he went out there, he quickly offered a prayer to Güntera and faced the masses. Thankfully, the generals did most of the speaking, he only had to speak at the end yet that was more terrifying than when Murtagh had first appeared on the battlefield. Nothing was as frightening as speaking to an expectant crowd and that he thought to himself, was both the biggest part of his job and the hardest.

**A/N Hello, I am sorry I didn't get my story up by the end of the weekend but I had trouble updating. I know it's a bad title but I couldn't come up with any others, feel free to post some suggestions. I will try to get the next chapter up by Friday, but no guarantees. I think the next chapter will have POV's from Murtagh, Arya and Nasuada. I might also try and squeeze a bit of Saphira in there as well. **

**For those who are unclear about why the scrying did not work properly is that scrying in 3D can only be done with like mirrors. The first dragon egg will hatch after the two shades and the remaining Raz'ac have been killed. This however will be a while. Does anybody know what the unnamed shadow should be like; I have considered it could be something from Vroengard or from the land where Eragon is going, any suggestions? Anyway, thanks for reading and feel free to post a review, greatly appreciated!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Inheritance Cycle, those belong Christopher Paolini, and his publishers. I do however own the characters that I will come up with and the story (maybe stories) that are yet to follow.**


	6. Freedom in chains

Freedom in chains

Murtagh sat back and looked at his plans drawn upon the rock. The work was going exactly how he planned, although he was not as good as builder as he would have liked to be, but having a dragon and being magician had some perks, namely not relying on anyone else for services or materials. In every essence he was a free man, yet the links that connected him to society were more binding than chains. First and foremost, he had been the Son of Morzan, the sole son, now that Eragon had been acquitted of that burden and through no fault of his own, he felt it more heavily now. Although Eragon was not to blame for this suprise, it had been upsetting to learn of it anyhow and he had felt a certain anger that Eragon would not have fared so well if he was in his position. Any link with the saviour of Alagaesia as they now would probably call him would be a link worth more than a thousand gold chains. Yet Eragon had been just as much a pawn as he had; even more so maybe. Eragon had little choices in the matter and even worse he and the people he had dealt with maintained the illusion he was free to do what he wanted, promising him with a false dawn that would never come.

Secondly, he had finally been accepted in the Varden and was able to fight for them. But then the twins had abducted him, what followed was months of suffering which was only lit by a solitary happy event, Thorn hatching for him. This was then quickly snuffed out as the king subjected them to a range of tortures, which eventually ended in them submitting to Galbatorix. He then quickly learnt their true names, and took the initiative to teach it to them. This had been a very humbling experience for them, not to mention painful, as it laid out their faults as a hunter lays out pelts to dry. He then, at the insistence of Galbatorix's will, fought the varden at every turn, and even had to slay another dragon rider. Finally, he had to impose his own exile on himself as he faced the momentous realisation that the rest of Alagaesia would not tolerate a dragon rider who had served under Galbatorix, willingly or not. Although in the end it had been probably for the best, they needed to heal their souls and staying with other people would distract them from doing the right thing.

As he stirred the stew, in their makeshift pot, cobbled together with magic, he wondered how the rest of Alagaesia was going. Eragon had probably already started building, or rebuilding would be a more accurate term, Vroengard, for where else was such a suitable place. Although maybe there was too much damage wrecked by the fight for it to remain fit for human habitation, although that was Eragon's decision not anyone else's. The elves were probably cowardly hiding in their little forests, licking the wounds from which the war had dealt them, and choosing their monarch. Orik would be trying to lead the dwarven clans through one of the most difficult times in recent history, even as they snapped at his heels when he made a slight falter or err of judgement. The Eldunari that Galbatorix had enslaved would take years or even centuries to fully heal, although it would probably be speeded up by the fact that they had many kin still among them who were sane. Finally, his mind drifted towards the human kingdom, he wondered if Nasuada or Orrin would become King or Queen. Nasuada would probably take the crown; she was a much more likely choice for the Varden, which was in no small way due to the oddities that Orrin exhibited when he was King. Although he questioned the validity of the sources that King Galbatorix had acquired, as many, on reflection, seemed awfully like they were trying to please the king rather than give him the correct portrayal of the circumstances in which the Varden were in.

After he had placed all the stew he would possibly be able to eat in his own bowl, and given the rest which he could not eat to his massive red glittering companion, Thorn. He stared up at the skies, wondering if you could fly up and around those glittering points that seemed so close but just out of arms reach. Thankfully, the last few days had been very nice, no gale-force winds, storm clouds or lightning, and they had been able to see the stars clearly. He and Thorn had decided in the wake of the first reasonably warm day, although it was still below freezing, to venture north and see if anything of interest lay around. Strangely as they went north, they had discovered some old buildings made of stone, frozen away in the ice. After much fire and strength on Thorn's part and his own prodigious skill with magic, they had successfully unearthed, or more aptly de-iced, the rest of the structure. Even though he was very skilful with magic, the work had made him uncomfortably tired. This was due to his previous dependence on the Eldunari for strength, which had meant that the regularity of which he had to fuel magic from his own body had diminished, and thus his performance when he did. After this realisation he had immediately resolved to use magic more often, and now he was slowly improving.

After much searching, and just before they were about to give up, they discovered something of interesting apart from the existence of such a structure so far north. In the floor of the second room, for there were only three rooms to search, there appeared to be trapdoor, and carved in it, were many runes. It was lucky that Galbatorix had had the foresight to teach them the basics of the ancient language and give them a duplicate of a compendium which he himself had compiled. Murtagh had not thought he would have needed it so soon, but he did not know all the letters or words written on the door, and so capturing a fairth of the trapdoor he brought it back to the cave where it now leaned against one of the cave walls. He would have opened the hidden door but it did not budge no matter which way or how hard he tried.

At first he had tried opening the door with brute force, for the spell which Galbatorix had cast to improve the strength of his body still lingered on him, although he was unsure whether it would last forever. Although either way it would be of no significance as he would gradually gain the strength of an elf. After brute force failed him, he turned to magic. He tried numerous spells and even going so far to invoke the name of the ancient language but to no avail, the door still remained resolutely shut. Whatever magic was holding the door shut was not bound by the ancient language, which was strange in itself. Although Murtagh had only recently been aware that you could cast magic without the ancient language, he and Eragon were living proof of that, as well as the rest of the Varden probably. For if Eragon had failed to kill the king, they probably would have been killed by the king or otherwise enslaved against their will. Finally, he resorted to mental probing, opening his barriers in order to reach out into the abyss of the mental landscape, but the further he pushed the tendrils of his mind, the firmer the resistance got until eventually his probe was stopped. Withdrawing his mind warily he had given up, only to just see the ring of the trapdoor, which had a small gem inserted in it flash with a brilliant green which promptly vanished a split second later.

The only few, who might be able to penetrate those mental barriers that were ingrained in the door, would be Galbatorix or Oromis, and maybe not even then. From what he had seen of the elf, his mastery of his own mind was like no-one's he had seen before, not even Galbatorix. To take on numerous Eldunari and Murtagh's own mind and to come close to winning was a feat that few would be able to replicate, even throughout history. The more he thought about it the more he realised that probably opening the door was not a very good idea, anybody who had built this structure so far north and removed from society, would probably have meant for it to contain something dangerous. Yet what would warrant such stringent measures and what would happen if this thing was unleashed. As he was brooding, contemplating writing a piece about the experiences he had had so far, and the fire's embers were slowly dying with every cooling gust of wind, his peripheral vision detected another green flash, but before he could even blink it vanished. One thing was for sure though; it originated in the direction of the stone building they had found.

Arya sighed as she flew over the tree-tops of Ellesmera, of all the things she thought she would do in her job the last thing that would come to mind is singing en-masse. Sure, she thought, she would participate in the elven ceremonies where they were required to sing but she did not think that she would participate in a massive expansion of the elves self-contained domain. She had fought long and hard against the decision of the council to expand the borders, but eventually they had convinced her that it was necessary. Her initial arguments had been that it would be seen as rude by the other races, and anyway the humans needed the wood from their forest. The council had eventually; with the sheer amount of arguments they had come up with, overwhelmed her defences and convinced her that it was necessary. The borders, where the elves influence would wane and even stop entirely, would be the various creeks meandered through the forest as well as the place where spells stopped items of magical propulsion trying to enter Du Weldenvarden. But as she rode Firnen, the flying along with the sense of companionship that Firnen brought, gradually eroded away her worries and she remembered how beautiful the Forrest looked from upon high when she had first seen it. It was then Firnen said "_What are you talking about, the forest is nothing compared to my beauty" _she smiled at the vanity of dragons and patted his scale, and then finding a hairline gap, she scratched his soft skin underneath. Firnen snorted and a little bit of smoke rolled out of his nostril, slightly warming her skin even as the winds cooled the rest of her body.

As she wandered throughout Nadindel, she remarked how that even if all of the settlement's inhabitants, it would still be a remarkably silent place. Apart from the few elves who had remained behind in case of emergency, there was nobody else here, only her and Firnen. She could almost pretend that they were the only ones there but every so often she caught a glimpse of them, flitting between the trees, dispelling her illusions. But then again, as she heard a roar from above as Firnen dove from the clouds, it was hard to remain inconspicuous and for the peace and quiet to remain unbroken. "_I heard that Arya, do not think as queen of the elves you can get away with" _she laughed, and in response the birds chirped, as Firnen flapped his wings, buffeting with wings until she eventually fell over. She caught herself before she fell awkwardly on a nearby tree root, but she continued to chuckle as Firnen was looked at her in his peculiar way that she was so fond of. "_What is so funny, Arya," _she paused as she gathered her wits, and launched into an explanation of what was so funny. Firnen snorted, accidentally letting a few sparks escape, "_I will never understand the two-legs, they are so unpredictable." _As Firnen shifted his body she noticed that the sun was fast disappearing behind the horizon. "_Come, let us get some sleep, tomorrow will be a hard day."_

As she mounted Firnen, she wondered how much they would accomplish today, almost every elf in Du Weldenvarden would be participating, but there were many spells of immense complexity that needed to be sung and to top it all off, many of the best elven spellcasters had departed with Eragon. Although she could not fault him for that, he was going to need all the help he could get in raising a cluster of wild dragons, constructing a new city and eventually, when one of the eggs hatched, training the new riders. That reminded her; she needed to consult with the elves that were currently stuck in one of the Dwarven cities, Tarnag she thought. It was an inconvenience to have a two raz'ac, a shade and an unnamed shadow, whatever that was, on the loose. She was convinced that the Dwarves and humans would be able to collectively deal with the Raz'ac, the shade would pose more of a problem, but once they finished their work she was sure that she would be able to convince the council to send a company of elves to assist in the hunt, and hopefully the destruction of the Dwarven shade. The unnamed shadow she was not so sure about but since it had yet to cause to trouble or exhibit any show of force, she was inclined to ignore it, there were more pressing matters. Such as whether she should increase the power of the elven lords to make decisions on her behalf as it was her opinion that she should spend more time consorting with the other races, than babysitting her own people. The council were hesitant about this not because they were bad leaders, quite the contrary, but they thought it might make them power-hungry, nevertheless she thought it could still work given enough tinkering to the elven laws.

Noticing that she had whiled away dawn thinking about politics, she decided to take more interest in her surroundings. Casting an appreciative eye over the monotonous forests below her she absorbed the many details that she saw. Whether it was the number of black feathers on a bird or a creek meandering through the sparse undergrowth on the forest floor, she took it all in, until she came to the realisation that the trees were slowly getting smaller and more spread. Taking this as a sign that they were close to the border, she adjusted her clothes to appear more regal in front of the elves she ruled over. For she knew that they would not expect anything less than her looking her best, well as good as anyone can look after riding a dragon for a few hours. Although most elves held her in high esteem due to a number of reasons, namely her devotion to the elves cause as well as being tortured at the hands of Durza, any tardiness on her behalf would instantly diminish their opinion of her. Any ruler whose subjects did not think highly of them, did not last long whether it be among the immortal elves or the short lived humans.

As she adjusted the tiara, or crown as the humans would call it, she thought of how it originally had been uncomfortable to wear and then gradually as she wore it more and more, it formed into shape. The only downside to that had been that she often forget she was wearing it and when taking a dip in the creeks outside of Oromosi's hut, or now her hut, it sometimes fell off and she had to chase after it as the water carried it away. What a tale that would be, a queen whose only reason to losing her crown was that she did not know if it was on or off her head because it was so comfortable. As her peeling laughter rang through the air, she heard and felt Firnen below her trying to stifle his snorts, until eventually both of them were laughing their heads off. This continued for a few moments, until it disrupted Firnen so much from flying that he clipped a tree with his wing. He went spinning for a second, until he righted himself and climbed in altitude, careful to avoid repeating the same mistake. Seething with annoyance, "_Bloody tree"_ Firnen bellowed "_It's lucky I am in a good mood or otherwise"_, his message accompanied by a stream of green flame originating from his mouth, directed at the sky, scaring a few birds in the process. She was hardly aware of this though as she descended into a fit of laughter at the image of Firnen colliding with the tree.

As the hours rolled by and the trees gradually became sparser and smaller, she fell into a lull, rising and falling in time with Firnen's steady beat. The sun had risen above the horizon and after a half an hour of flying the edge of the forest became visible and then the plains as well, stretching on into the distance as far as the eye could see. As Firnen caught sight of the Gama River, he changed course and by midday they had arrived at the edge of the forest. Elves were lined along its edge and as they drifted downwards in a spiral she could hear their heavenly melodies floating upwards. Smiling, she once again descended into the maw that threatened to consume her life, and more importantly her soul.

**A/N Good day to everyone, I am sorry I couldn't fit in the POV's that I said I would but I thought it was more important to get this chapter up than include them, anyway I like keeping my chapters a reasonable size, 5000 words takes quite a while to write. However to make it up, I will include all the POV's I skipped out on in the next chapter plus Eragon. I might be able to get another chapter up by the end of the weekend but don't be disappointed if it doesn't happen.**

**I have now got a rough outline for the plot of the story. Eragon will find his new place for the dragons in about 3 or 4 chapters, but time in Alagaesia would be about 6 months to a year, the reason I will confine it to this distance/timescale is that you don't want the riders too far away otherwise the new dragon riders will take too long to get there or get lost on the way. The reason why you don't want it less than 6 months is that ships go slower and do not, metaphorically speaking, go as the dragon flies. You also do not want to be too close to Alagaesia and you need to find a suitable mountain range or island as well. This limits their options greatly, which is one of the reasons why it will take such a lengthy timescale to find. I am undecided about whether they should travel across an inland sea, or a small ocean. Thanks for reading and please review, thank you for those who continue to offer their loyal support to my story, I do not know how to pay repay you except by writing more chapters. **

**P.S. I will do the following POV's definitely, plus a few more:**

**Eragon (Obviously)**

**Saphira**

**Murtagh**

**Arya**

**Nasuada**

**Orik**

**Potential POV's**

**Thorn**

**Blodhgarm**

**Glaedr**

**Roran**

**Angela**

**Dwarven Magician**

**Orrin (very slight chance)**

**I have missed anyone obvious who I should do, or not included one I have already done, please leave it in the review section(Hint: it is below this). Thank you very much and have a nice day**


	7. The Approaching Age

The approaching age

Roran looked around at the destruction that the soldiers had wrecked on the town, there was nothing left. Piles of burnt timber could be seen scattered everywhere, although nature was quickly reclaiming the valley. Packs of wolves could be seen roaming across the fields and there were was little evidence that a hearty community had once stood here. As the rest of the villagers came up behind him, in their flimsy horse drawn carriages, which they had bargained for from Nasuada, they uttered gasps at what happened to the place where they were born. Coming to the realisation that they would have to build the town from scratch, they earnestly started working on setting up a makeshift camp. After arranging the wagons in a protective circle to shelter from the wind, they proceeded to start to unpack their supplies. Working with the dedication unrivalled by anyone throughout Alagaesia, for the sun was dwindling in its strength and the prospect of an open night in the chilly night air was dismal, they quickly erected two small huts. One for the carpenters, for they would be most valuable in the reconstruction of the town, and another for supplies that would not survive the open air, whether it be food or priceless gifts given to them during their stay in the Varden.

Roran himself had only been recently aware how much things of value he possessed. The casket of gems that Eragon had given him, an enchanted scrying mirror, the gold rings which he wore on his finger, a magically strengthened hammer and a small crown and token that Nasuada had given to him to accompany his title of Earl. His wife, Katrina, was also quite well off, she had been given an enormous dowry by Nasuada. His most prized possessions, apart from the rings that were enchanted to locate Katrina, was the scrying mirror that Eragon had given him. It would allow him to contact Eragon even though he might be thousands of miles away. As of yet Eragon had not initiated contact, although there might have been a small possibility that he had missed him. As he thought about this his mind returned to that night when Eragon had boarded the Talita. At the time he was sad about the fact that he would probably never get to wrestle with his cousin, but gradually as he kneeled there, on the shoreline of the Edda River, he was comforted by the fact that he might still be able to talk to his cousin on rare occasions. This thought had boosted him out of his mournful state, and while he waited for Arya to return, and even as they picked him up and flew off, he thought about what sort of life his cousin would have.

As they flew over Hedarth, they could see evidence of the Dwarves packing up from their feasts and celebrations, as Firnen swooped over the town, he saw a solitary dwarf waiving at him, smiling at seeing Orik again, he returned the wave. But they did not stop, for Arya and Firnen, he knew, had much to do. After they had passed over Hedarth he thought he saw a small tear glinting in the moonlight on Arya's high-boned cheek, but just as quick as he noticed it, it was gone. This had set him thinking and after flying for so long, they stopped over at Ceris. Where they took a short rest, and amid the joyous expressions of the elves he told them of some of the battles that he had fought in. Although the elves were not deferential to him, he had realised that tales of the battles he had fought in had reached their ears, and they had thus treated him with respect. After taking a drink of Faelnivr, which had induced perplexing hallucinations, he had retired for the night, or so he thought when he walked into his accommodation and promptly tried to lie down in the bed but fell on the floor. The Faelnivr had created an illusion of a bed and he had literally, and metaphorically, fell for it.

That incident had him laughing for hours the next day. At first Arya had been puzzled about what was making him laugh, but then eventually he explained it to her and he saw a small little smile crease her lips, the first one he had seen since Eragon had left. Below them, Firnen, he could feel although he was trying to contain it, was chuckling at the event. Thankfully, the effects of Faelnivr had worn off by morning, as it would have otherwise made riding a dragon extremely dangerous. Oh what a sorry tale that would have been, the first earl of Palencar valley, falling off a dragon, not even his own, on the way to his kingdom and dying. It took about a week for them to cross Du Weldenvarden, by this time he had firmly entrenched in his mind the ideal castle in which he aimed to build. Even though it would probably be a year before he started to build it or even consider starting, it was a useful tool to combat the hours of silence they had spent on dragon back. He and Arya shared little in common, plus the fact that they were both recovering from the fact that one of their best friends had just left the known world, meant that there was not a lot of talk exchanged between them. However this had probably been best as they both needed time to think before they cast their selves once more again into the maw that was everyday life.

However, things lightened up considerably after they picked up Katrina from Ellesmera, and conversation had begun, and by a few hours, they were chatting merrily and normally, well as normal as you can have a three-way conversation on a dragon-back a few hundred feet in the air. As they flew out over Du Weldenvarden they considered their options of what to do. At first Arya wanted to drop them off at Carvahall directly, and they agreed, but her elven eyesight had caught of a large group of humans. Deducing that this was the villagers on their way back to Carvahall, she enquired if they had wanted to be dropped off among them. To which, after a few seconds of conversing with Katrina, he had agreed too, and it was settled. Half an hour later they dropped out of the sky amidst the delight of the villagers. Soon after everything was settled on the ground, Firnen took off, but just before he did, Arya shouted out, the wind catching most of her words. But he could hear "_Fare thee well, Roran, cousin of Eragon Shadeslayer, I shall return." _Nodding in a gesture of understanding, he signalled goodbye and then Firnen took off, the ground shaking as he did.

Somebody shouted out his name, derailing his train of thoughts. It was Horst, "_Get over here Roran, just because you're an earl doesn't mean you don't have to do any work." _Recognising that he was being playful he shouted back in return "_Nasuada states on this piece of parchment" _he pulled out a random piece of parchment out of a nearby wagon and waved it in the wind, "_that_ _I no longer have to do any work, and I have the right to work you all to death building my castle." _Horst chuckled and returned the jibe with "_You bet you do, Lord Roran is getting mighty high on his horse, I say, why don't we bring him back down to good old solid ground." _To which the villagers all laughed. Knowing that he should help out he headed over to the trees and started picking up logs to bring to the carpenter shop, which already had a massive pile of wood outside.

By nightfall, a protective barrier from the wind had been constructed, tents assembled, two small huts had been built and a rough plan for the village had been drawn upon one of the many pieces of parchment they had. In the centre of the town they would construct a bell tower, and then there would be a courtyard/marketplace surrounding this, radiating outwards from the city centre would be streets and houses and finally once they had done this they would find a way to get enough stone to build an outer wall. The town would be constructed in a way that there would be plenty of room for growth but also easy to defend. This is where elements from other cities came in. The gradually descending height of houses and slots for barriers were borrowed from Tierm, the numerous trees and rooftop gardens in the town from the elven cities and from human cities, stone walls offering protection to those who resided within them. This he thought, would be the building blocks for a great town where all could prosper.

As they flew towards the ruins Eragon could not help but feel a sense of uneasiness, even though he was the most powerful known person he was still hesitant about venturing into unknown places full of unknown dangers. Saphira, he could feel from his bond with her, did not share his uneasiness but then again she was a dragon, and dragons have little to fear from anybody except other dragons. Plus if she did feel uneasy she would probably not share it with him, even though they were destined to be lifelong partners, a dragon, well at least according from Saphira, would and should never be scared of anything. The ruins lay next to the mouth of the river and sea shore. As of yet he did not know whether the sea was salty or not but they would soon find out. As he tightened his grip on the saddle as Saphira went into a dive, he turned around to see where the Talita was and saw that it was just over a few miles away.

As Saphira touched down he glanced around at the ruins at the centre of what must have been a lively town. Although it had been long since abandoned a sense of sadness crept into Eragon. The stones were inscribed with stories ranging from the building of the town to its finest heroes coming back from wars, laden with gifts of precious value. Nowhere could he see why the town had declined although many of the stones inscribed with illustrations of the stories were broken in many places. After much scrutiny of the ruins and deep pondering thoughts he eventually moved on, perusing through the things that Saphira was seeing, for she was circling above, he eventually caught sight of something interesting. Out near the edge of town, the furthest point from both the river and the shoreline, there was three big stone structures. Setting out towards them, he noticed that the style of the town was based on Tierm, or more likely the other way around. The height of the buildings gradually got shorter and shorter the further he ventured from the town while in the streets there were places for barricades to be slotted in.

After a few minutes of walking through the street he eventually came across the buildings he was searching for, arrayed in a triangle they were the few buildings that still had their roofs partly intact. Feeling slightly foolish, for want of a better word, he cast a few spells to see if there was any magic imbued in the structure. After several minutes of chanting he had concluded that the spells cast on the three buildings were only designed to support it, nothing else. Casting aside his worries, although he could sense Saphira was ready to help him if need be, he ventured inside the first of the three buildings. It was utterly unspectacular, it appeared to be a storage building and there was nothing of interest in it. The second building he entered appeared to be a prison, with a few cells on each of the two floors. The third building he entered was much more exciting; in one corner there was a bookshelf, although this had been emptied to some unknown place, one side of the hall contained a stone throne, still standing strong, and in the last corner lay a big stone block next to another slap leaning against the wall.

Walking over to investigate the stone block, he passed by the stone throne and looking down he noticed that his feet had passed right through the back of the throne. Crouching down he examined the base of the throne, but could see no faults, extending his arm he reached down to touch the throne but his fingers passed through the throne as if it was insubstantial. Realizing that it was an illusion he went around to the front of the throne and knelt in front of it trying to see how much of the throne an illusion was. To his surprise, and annoyance at stubbing his fingers on the stone, he realised that the front was as solid as the stone found in Tronjheim. Extending his arms on each side of the stone he felt where the stone was present and where it was an illusion. Puzzled, he realised that it was only the back of the stone that was an illusion, the rest he had discovered, through jarring his fingers, was real. Still crouching he glanced around the room until his eyes rested on the stone slab resting against the wall, he realised that it roughly matched the height and width of the throne. He strode over to it, taking care not to trip on the many hazards that lay between him and the item of his pursuit, picked it up and carried it back to the throne. He slotted it in the back of the throne and it fitted perfectly. A small finger hold at the top of the back of the throne would allow people to extract the slab and enter the secret domain.

After much effort and a broken fingernail he had successfully had once again extracted the stone slab and now was leaning against the wall again. Gripping the edge of the floor, and casting a werelight below him, he slowly lowered himself into the chamber. The first thing he noticed was that the room was quite small and singular. The second, more obvious, pressing feature was that every spare inch of wall was blocked by bookshelves which in turn contained numerous pieces of parchment. Glancing down at his feet he noticed that there were steps below, and he let go. Breathing a sigh of relief at not finding an ancient horror, for Umaroth had warned him that dark things lurked in abandoned places, he asked Saphira "_Bring me Blodhgarm and his two wisest elves, for I need their advice and knowledge." _A few moments later Saphira contacted him saying "_It is done little one, they have just touched down at one of the wharves, the rest of the elves are staying aboard the ship, but Blodhgarm and two two-legged ones are approaching you, they will be there in a few moments." _He took the opportunity to flick through one of the nearest bound piece of parchment and saw that it contained a map of the surrounding land as well as an unknown kingdom, which was at least three times as big as the area the old riders had held influence over before they were slaughtered by Galbatorix and his cursed Forsworn.

He was interrupted in his deeply immersed state when Blodhgarm arrived in the room above, deduced in no time where Eragon was and dropped through the back of the throne, however the other two elves stayed above. Greeting Eragon with his usual inclined nod of his head and "_Shadeslayer" _he glanced around until his eyes rested on the bound pieces of parchment held in Eragon's hand. When he examined Blodhgarm's face he was surprised to find that the elf, instead of showing an expression devoid of emotion, was instead grappling with something perplexing, and his inner thoughts had spilled out as he looked troubled. He tore his eyes from the parchment that Eragon held and focused so intently on Eragon that he had felt the need to turn away and shield himself from Blodhgarm's fierce gaze. Instead he quelled the feeling as Blodhgarm started to slowly talk "_A long time ago, when the dwarven race had been settled in the mountains for only a few thousand years_, _the humans, Urgals, raz'ac and elves were still to set foot upon the lands that we now know so well, we elves made a terrible mistake in a far off land. What we did we cannot tell you for it is beyond our understanding, we also no longer have the knowledge, time, strength or willingness to examine what went wrong, but in summary we created a monstrosity. We had to abandon Alalea because of this, although a few of the braver, stronger elves thought this was foolish and decided to stay in the land that had been their home for so many years. Although it broke the hearts of our ancestors to say goodbye to them, we knew it was necessary and thus we departed. What happened to the rest I cannot say as we have not had the courage to return there and it is debated whether they received immortality as they were so far away. Anyway I digress; we wished them well upon their endeavours and then we sailed away in our ships. This journey was not for the faint of heart though; there were many deaths on the high seas, it was a time of great sorrow for our people and behind us, we saw that there was an Urgal fleet following us. Do not ask me how they got enough ships; it is one of the enduring mysteries that time has left us. Perhaps they have some record of it but I doubt it. Eventually we came across the land we now know today as 'Alagaesia,' we quickly settled and the rest of our history Oromis would have covered. Although we bought many records of Alalea over here count yourself lucky, as a human has never seen the records before because there are so few of them left, and the ones that are left are not entrusted lightly."_

As his gaze alighted on Blodhgarm's face he noticed a solitary tear, reflecting the red light emanating from the werelight, on an otherwise unemotional face. Realising the story had ended he thanked Blodhgarm most sincerely and then placed the bound pieces of parchment back on one of the shelves. Just before Blodhgarm was about to protest, he muttered "_Reisa" _and all of the parchments rose into the air, he then cast another spell for the parchments to follow him, the drain on his strength was so negligible he almost didn't notice. Motioning for Blodhgarm to follow him he exited out of the chamber and walked towards the Talita, the parchment tailed him in a long line, which according to Saphira, was quite amusing. Once Blodhgarm had finished seeing if there was anything Eragon had missed, which there wasn't, he pushed the stone slab back into place and then followed Eragon out of the building.

Back on board the Talita, once they had cast off, he had handed the parchment brought from the throne room over to the elves. They would then spend the next few hours poring over the documents to see if they contained anything interesting, and if they did they would report Blodhgarm who would then report to Eragon. But as of now he was too tired to stay up any longer, so he plonked down on one of the mattresses, set up underneath an awning at the stern, and immediately fell asleep, ready for the challenges that the next day would throw at him.

Nasuada glanced around at the leaders arrayed before her; in other circumstance she would have been happy to see them, but not now. One raz'ac was still alive, a dwarven shade was on the loose, another even more powerful shade had yet to arrive and the dwarves had foreseen an unnamed shadow roaming the land. The situation had vastly improved from when Orik and then Arya had first told her what they knew. Since then one of the raz'ac had been killed, the other was injured and the unnamed shadow which Orik had told her about, was yet to be released upon the land. The dwarf, who had apparently seen the unnamed horror, was actually sleepwalking and in his dreams he matched what he was doing in reality, whatever that meant. Apparently that was why it had taken the dwarven magicians so long to determine whether dwarf had had a premonition or not. Although she was thankful for this because it meant she could prepare for it and there was one less thing to deal with at present now.

Among those layed out in front of her were Orrin, Orik, one of the dwarven Grimstborith whose name was on the tip of her tongue, Nar Garzhvog, he had finally acquired a scrying mirror, Vanir and the group of elves that had been appointed to carry out the task of finding the new dragon rider and a host of other important people. The only other person she wished was on-board this meeting apart from Eragon, was Roran, she had come to respect his opinion over the course of the war and he never hesitated to speak the truth or voice his thoughts. That reminder her, she needed to do two things, next time she contacted Eragon she would ask him about the scrying mirror he had given Roran, and she also needed to ask one of her advisors where the nearest source of stone was to Carvahall. As the meeting progressed their topics gradually changed, one moment they were talking about if the elves should continue to try and get the egg to hatch then the next they were talking about whether to hunt down the shade or let it come to them. The dwarves were of the opinion that they should hunt it out but the other races were not so sure, for it would take a while to send the troops and magicians necessary to deal with them. Slowly the hours ticked by until the sun was setting, then it was decided that they would need to deal their respective races and thus the meeting was finished.

Calling Jormundur she explained the situation to him and told him to arrange another meeting the next day with Orrin to discuss things in private, she then bade him goodnight and retired to her chambers, where Farica, her handmaiden, was waiting for her. Farica then helped her get ready for bed, while she was grateful for this she was even more thankful for the companionship she provided and the opportunity to talk to someone who wasn't trying to extort something from her. As much as she liked Orik, and to a lesser extent Orrin, they almost always had political agendas. Although this was not bad in its own right it just impeded having pleasant conversation about trivial things. After much talking, and outside the moon had risen well above the horizon, she resigned herself to the fact that staying awake any longer, no matter how nice a conversation they were having, would be doing herself a disservice. Dismissing Farica with a "_Thank you" _and a wave of her hand, to which her handmaiden responded with a bow before exiting the room, she collapsed on the bed. There she lay staring at the ceiling of the room, tracing the lines on the ceiling with her eyes just as she had done when she was a captive of Galbatorix in this very same city. Any other time of the day that thought would have given her the shivers but right now she was too tired to care and eventually she entered the dream world, where she forgot the troubles she faced in the waking world.

**A/N Hello. I realise that I did not get the chapter by the end of the weekend but truthfully I have had a lot bigger things to worry about. I probably won't get another proper chapter up for another week/ week and a half, as I have a lot of stuff coming up. However instead of a proper chapter I might add a timeline of the POV's I have done so far, this will be helpful to me as well as probably you, the readers. I will also try and upload a bunch of images depicting what I meant for the places I have described, to look like. If anyone has read Mathew Reilly, simple drawings that illustrate complicated stuff make an easier read. As they say, a picture equals a thousand words.**

**I couldn't include Eragon and Saphira in the same chapter as that would be very hard to write, but I promise next chapter will include Saphira's POV instead of Eragon. My biggest chapter yet! Once I have gotten up to chapter 10 I will take a break to read over my chapters, correct the many mistakes that are obviously there and fix up the time of day. Anyway I will not take up anymore of your time with my problems. Thanks for reading and please review + Thanks to those who have favourited, followed, reviewed or supported me in any way.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Inheritance Cycle, those belong Christopher Paolini, and his publishers. I do however own the characters that I will come up with and the story (maybe stories) that are yet to follow.**

**Thus, do unto others as you would have them do unto yourself.**


	8. PoV Timeline (Not a chapter)

Timeline of POV's in my story so far

For the purpose of making things easy I will say that Eragon left Alagaesia 6 months after he killed Galbatorix and is now the end of winter.I might, when I take my break at chapter 10, restructure all the POV's so that they are at the same time.There is not much pointing reading this unless you are confused about the timeline of my story so far.

Chapter 1

Eragon's first POV is set in the first two days after Firnen/Arya left; it is night at the start of the chapter and daytime by the end.

Chapter 2

Eragon's POV is set about 8 hours after his POV in chapter 1. It is still day-time but by the time he has finished his statue it is night-time again.Murtagh's POV is set about 4 months after the king is killed. It is the start of winter, nearing the end of the day and the entire mini episode goes for about an hour.

Chapter 3

Nasuada's perspective takes place about 6 and a bit months after the king is killed and obviously at almost the same time as Eragon's perspective in Chapter 2. The PoV spans two hours and is set just after the sun goes down (twilight.)Orik's perspective is a few days before Nasuada's, which in turn is 6 months after the king is killed. The POV starts in the morning and ends in the afternoon/evening.Arya's perspective is around the same time as Nasuada's. It spans from late afternoon to twilight. Takes place 6 and half months after Galbatorix is killed.

Chapter 4

Eragon's POV starts around midnight. He has to do many things and eventually by the time he gets back to the Talita it is 5pm the next day. His perspective ends the day after this around the middle of the day.Orik's perspective is set two days after Arya's perspective last chapter. It starts in the morning and ends around midday.

Chapter 5

Murtagh's POV is set about a month after his first POV, so five months after the king was killed. Just after the sun sets, his perspective starts and finishes up about an hour later.Arya's POV is set about a week after her dream of the shade. Initially at the start of her perspective it is around midday. By the time they get to Nadindel it is evening and the sun is about to set. The next day they set off before dawn and arrive at the borders around a few hours after dawn. 6 months and three weeks since Galbatorix was killed.

Chapter 6

Roran's POV is set about 6 months after the king is killed. His perspective spans a whole day, from morning to night. This is tightly fitted in between Eragon's first perspective and Arya's and Nasuada's perspective in chapter 3.Eragon's POV takes off almost immediately after his last POV in chapter 4. It starts around midday and ends an hour after the sun goes down.Nasuada's POV takes place around midday and then ends at twilight. In the context of the rest of Alagaesia she had her meeting around Arya's perspective last chapter.

Chapter 7

Murtagh's POV is set two weeks after his second POV. So that would make it 5 and ½ months after the king was killed. It starts around midday, late morning and then finishes up at twilight.Saphira's POV (which I will redo) is set a few days after they depart the deserted town, so that makes it around 10 days after Arya and Firnen left them. The POV starts around mid-morning and then ends at mid-afternoon.

Chapter 8

Eragon's POV is about a week and a half after his last perspective, a week after Saphira's POV last chapter. The first part of his POV is at this time, around midday to afternoon. The second part of his POV was two days past his first POV, around morning to just before lunchtime. The third part of his chapter was a week after his second POV part, around twilight and goes for about an hour. 6 months and 17 days since Galbatorix was killed.Arya's POV is set a few days after her last POV in chapter 5, her perspective lasts for about an hour and takes place in the morning and finishes in the morning. Just a few days before they pass the mark of 7 months free of Galbatorix's rule.Orik's perspective is a few weeks after his last perspective in Chapter 4. Enough time to settle things after his meetings and then about two weeks to travel all the way to Orthiad. It lasts for about an hour and is around midday.

Chapter 9

Roran's POV is set two weeks after his last POV, which in turn was about 6 months from when Galbatorix was killed. The first part of the POV is in the morning, and only lasts for about an hour, if that. The second part of the POV is set in the evening, it is not yet dark, and it only lasts for an hour as well.Orik's perspective lasts for a few hours and set is around mid-afternoon to twilight. It is set a few hours after his last perspective, and they will soon be going. Two weeks from when he departed from Farthen Dur.

Chapter 10

Eragon's POV only goes on for about a few hours, and starts around mid-morning and finishes early afternoon. The perspective is three days after his last perspective in Chapter 8, which would make it around 6 months and 20 days since Galbatorix was killed.Nasuada's POV is set a few days after her last perspective, and lasts from late afternoon to twilight. 6 months and 3 1/2 weeks since Galbatorix was killed. It is also only a few days after Arya's perspective in chapter 5.

Chapter 11

Eragon's POV is set a day after his last perspective, and it is around midday. It does not really matter when this POV is, as it contains no references to other chapters, it was simply a fight scene which I wanted to try my hand at. But for the sake of this document, it does have a specific time.Arya's POV is set on the 7th month mark, give or take a day, since Galbatorix was killed. Takes place in the morning and the whole episode lasts only for about an hour, if not half an hour.Murtagh's POV is set about half a week after his last perspective in Chapter 7. The first part of the POV is three days after his last perspective, and starts and finishes in the evening. The second part of his POV is set in the morning of the next day, and goes up until late morning/noon. The third part of his PoV is set around twilight in the same day as part two, and only lasts for about an hour.

Chapter 12

Nasuada's PoV goes for about a few hours and is around late afternoon to early evening. It is a few days after her last perspective which was in Chapter 10, which means it was around 7 months since Galbatorix was killed, and about the same time as Arya's POV in Chapter 11.Saphira's POV is set a day after Eragon's perspective in Chapter 11 and the time is just after noon. By this time, they are on their way down the course of the river, except it will be a few days before they reach the sea. This makes it 6 months and 22 days since Galbatorix was killed.

**A/N Just a quick notice. I won't be uploading for about a week as I am extremely busy, really sorry, but once I have finished my school. I will redo my Saphira POV as I know I annoyed a lot of people with it, but I couldn't really see any other way to differentiate between a dragons way of thinking and a humans/elves, any suggestions would be much appreciated. I aim for this story to be about 20-25 chapters (not including the things that are not actually chapters) but I will no longer take a break at 10 chapters but rather at chapter 15. **

**Thanks for reading and please review. Good day to everyone**


	9. Life is Learning

Life is learning

Murtagh finished laying the foundations to the wall in his cave just as he heard Thorn land outside, carrying two large stone blocks in his claws. After a few seconds, Thorn wound his head round to see what Murtagh was doing and snorted. Amused and interested, he enquired to Thorn if there was something wrong and in return he nearly kicked himself. "_Murtagh, I was thinking, you know how we are going to build this castle, how exactly do they keep castles stuck together, is there some kind of sticky substance to make sure the walls do not fall over?" _"_I have no idea" _responded Murtagh, "_we might have to come up with something or go back to Alagaesia to get ideas, although I am sure Galbatorix taught us something about how castles were built." _Thorn stayed still for a second as he thought over the matter, "_I am sure we can come up with something, we would make a terrible dragon-rider pairing if we were stumped by how to hold a castle together." _Not so sure about the fact that they would be able to build castles without something together, but sensing that there would be a way out of this, without causing anymore strife he simply said "_Hmnn" _and let Thorn be.

Grabbing the chisel and the hammer which he had fashioned out of stone, albeit with the help of magic, he walked outside, the freezing maw, which looked like it was going to start snowing again, and started chiselling away at the two stone blocks Thorn had brought. Roughly oval in shape, they were about the size of him, and would be able to provide numerous stones for the wall. Once he had chiselled away all the blocks he had not the slightest indication of what to do with the fragments. Gradually as he mulled over the problem, he thought he could get Thorn to meld them together with his fire, but that would be too impractical. Instead he thought, they would form the perfect filling for the walls, mixed in with dirt and protected with magic, they could provide insulation and safety, some two things Murtagh kept dearly to his heart. He was quickly interrupted from going down lines of thought that would not be helpful, by almost smashing his finger with the hammer. To his disappointment, when he had closely examined the stone block, he had hardly made any progress. He was now under the realisation that the spells Galbatorix had cast on his body to make him stronger were gradually wearing off, although he sorely missed them, one reason being the fact that it made every single elf, and a few dwarfs, stronger than him, he had come to the conclusion that he would be better served by acquiring a riders full strength naturally.

Suspecting that in the future it would be very handy to access a formidable source of energy, he had decided that after he had done chiselling he would store some energy in the pommel of Zar'roc. Speaking of which, he had no idea where the sword was, "_Silly Murtagh" _voiced Thorn in his head_ "It's at your hip, your so used to wearing it you forget when you are wearing it." _And truth be told, when he looked down, there it was, hanging in its sheath from his brown leather belt. Embarrassed by his shortcoming, he shut Thorn out of his mind, but he could still hear the amusement coming from Thorn, in the form of deep grating sound echoing throughout the valley. Coming to the conclusion that it would be more than likely he would forget about storing energy in the ruby, he did it then and there, just to make sure. "_You can never be too careful_" he thought wryly, especially considering the premonition he had seen prior some time ago. It would take a great fool to be naïve about the abominations that walked the land. One only had to look as far as his journey from being a respected swordsman in the Varden, to the Empire's most deadly and ferocious warrior, all in the course of a few months. This he thought was the prime example of how fast events in this world could go at. But out here, in the wilderness, with Thorn and a few hardy animals, life proceeded slowly and with little significance.

He grinned at the amount of the stone blocks he chiselled, not even the imminent storm clouds could darken his mood. He picked two of the blocks up and carried them over to the cave wall, where he laid them down inside. In total, there were 10 medium sized blocks which he had successfully managed to carve out of the stone ovals, which meant he had had to make another 4 trips back and forth. Littered around the flat space where he had carved the blocks, where numerous fragments which he gathered up in a pile, and transported onto to the floor of the cave. He called out to Thorn with his mind, and soon enough he could hear the approaching noise of steadily beating wings. While he waited Thorn sent him a mental image of him flying with another set of stones, and then, as Thorn came into view of their little tucked away cove of isolation, he sent a query about all the stones which had yet to be carved up, lying in a pile just a few metres from the foundations of the castle. Cursing himself for not noticing them, he issued a mental version of a shrug and responded by saying "_I have not had enough time to embark on cutting all those up, but I thank you dearly for delivering those. I know you would not care where we lived, but I feel this project will prove my worth and make our time spent in exile interesting._" To which Thorn responded with "_You need not prove your worth to anyone but yourself and me, you have already proved your worth when I chose to hatch for you and surely you have proven you to yourself a hundred times over. Only look as far as allowing Eragon a chance to kill Galbatorix even though it might have meant severe pain on your behalf. On the subject of interesting events, would you not say we have had our full of them for several centuries. Now, what is it that you would have me do?" _

Tapping into magic through the ancient language, he created a light and then using it as a source of illumination, for the dim light that penetrated through the ever-present clouds was gradually disappearing, manipulated the two stone blocks so that they were up against an un-used cave wall. Stepping back, he watched as Thorn released from his mouth a torrent of red flames aimed at the stone blocks, and thus kept it aimed there for a few minutes, until the stones were literally melting and gradually intertwining together. At his command, Thorn relinquished the stream of flames, and slowly the surrounding air cooled down, even as the blocks were still hot. Casting a ward to protect him from the molten stone, he grabbed the hammer lying on a rock near him, and started banging the stone together to hold the blocks together. Gradually, as the block cooled down and formed in place, he could see that they were linked to form a single block. Pleased with his and Thorns work for the day, he wrapped himself in some furs which they had gotten from an animal they had skinned and walked outside. He then proceeded to mount Thorn and then after half a minute of slowly adjusting and strapping himself into his harness, they took off, leaving their icy retreat behind.

After a few hours of flying around, and by which it was almost the time for the sun to set, they had finally caught a few deer and one obviously lost feral goat. He had slung the goat in front of him on Thorns back, Thorn had taken to noisily crunching one of the deer, and the other two were being clutched in each of Thorn's front claws. Once they had landed, and extracted the slightly squashed remains of two poor deer from Thorn's claws, which were now set aside for Thorn only, he had started a fire, which he was now tending as he roasted a bit of the goat on the spit. Behind him, further back in the cave Thorn was licking the bloody mess of his claws clean. Thorn curled up, reminded him of a cat, licking his scales as a cat licks its furs only made the likeness in appearance and demeanour even more pronounced. Yet he dared not remark the likeness too Thorn, who he thought, would not impressed at being though as akin to a small cat.

After he had finished scraping the remnants of the meet from the blackened stick, he tossed it outside, stamped out the fire and pulled out gloves from his small daypack. After making sure that he was mostly covered up, he walked over to Thorn, who opened his wing, inviting him to nestle comfortably in the enclosed space. He fell asleep soon, the warmth from Thorn's body soaking into his, making sure that he did not have to spend too much energy producing heat. The last thought that crossed his mind before he entered the dream world, was the lessons that he had learnt today, always plan before you act.

Saphira watched as her _partner-of-heart-and-mind _trained on the deck, she had just begun to notice the minute changes in his strength relative to that of the _two-legged, sharp-pointed-ear_ ones, or Alfakyn as her _partner-of-heart-and-mind_ more commonly referred to them as. He was now faster and stronger than almost all of the _two-legged-ones_ except for the _ Blue-black-wolf Blodhgarm_, and even then there wasn't much of a difference. She couldn't tell whether it was down to the spells that the _heart-of-hearts_ kept constantly forcing her _little one_ to perform, in order to strengthen his limbs, or the vast amount of physical training that he did during his _mind-breaking-exhausting _training routine, but either way he was slowly gaining an advantage over the others. There was only one area where she thought he had lacked, and that was flexibility. Although she had neglected to tell him this because the pride of the _two-legged-ones _were easy to prick, she could not help but convey a little semblance of this observation to her _little one_, even though he might not notice it. After all, having a _partner-of heart-and-mind, _meant that you could not keep much from them, no matter how hard you tried to hide information. One day it would come across in a slip of the thought, and it would be revealed to them.

Getting back to original train of thought, after she had noticed Eragon had stopped sparring with some of the elves and had now taken to conversing with _blue-black-wolf Blodhgarm _to improve his fluency of the Ancient language, she realised how hard her _little-ones _training was. At first she had been jealous that her _partner-of-heart-and-mind _had been receiving all the attention from the _hearts-of-hearts, _but then she had gradually come to the conclusion that she would rather do her training and not have any attention lavished on her, hard as that might be for a mighty dragon such as comparison, her training had been relatively easy and short, not the _back-breaking-labour Glaedr-Elda_ and _Umaroth-Elda _subjected her _-easily-tired-and-squashed-little-one _too. All she had to do was perform aerobatic manoeuvres for a few hours, absorb Eragon's knowledge throughout the day subconsciously and perform a few other titbits. Keeping an eye on Eragon's training as she circled lazily above the elven ship Talita, she though back on the _mind-numbingly-boring _events which had transpired since they had left the edge of the sea, in short not much at all had happened.

After they had left the _deserted-ruined-eyesore_ town they had embarked across the _blue-as-her-majestic-scales _inland sea, for the _two-legged-pointed-ear-ones_ had tasted the _sea-blue-sparkling_ water and detected that it was not _thirst-exacerbating_ salty. A day into their voyage they had come across a string of _middle-of-nowhere_ islands, by this time they could no longer see the edges of the _enormous-expanse_ sea. There they had had a few meals, the two-legged-pointed-ear ones and her _partner-of-heart-and-mind _had eaten _untasty-unfilling _vegetables and roots, while she had taken to eating some of the _small-tasty _wildlife, who had previously been unacquainted with _shining-scale _dragons. In total there were 10 islands, yet they had only stopped at the first and the last, the first _sanctuary-promising-island_ one was the biggest, which was where they stopped for _tasty-belly-filling _lunch, and the last island was where they constructed a small tower, and around it a small forest. Again, through the growing wisdom of her _nest-mate _and the _heart-of-hearts _they had enchanted the light in the _Tierm_-_lighthouse-lookalike, _to draw its _word-will _energy from _sparkling-like-her-scales _gems, which in-turn drew their _word-will _energy from the surrounding _same-colour-as-Firnen's-scales _trees.

It would guide the _newborn-hatchlings _to wherever they would make their _enormous-dragon-haven _city-state. She fervently hoped that they would reach it soon, as she was beginning to tire of the endless monotony of flying in _head-irritating _circles above the _slow-wooden-small _elven ship. Those events had been a few days ago, and they had seen naught but _endless-sea-expanse _since then. A few times she had taken _wonderful-refreshing-scale-cleaning _dives into the sea, but she was unable to reach or even come close to reaching the _deep-rock-solid _bottom of the sea. Her _nest-mate _had supposed that the _ same-colour-as-her-sparkling-scales _sea might even a league deep, which was beyond her ability to dive, try as she might.

The _two-legged-pointed-ear _ones had been occupied for the past few _long-monotonous _days deciphering the documents using their small _music-magic-infused _minds. So far nothing of interest had come up; it had only confirmed what the _two-legged-pointed-ear _ones had already known. The reason it was taking so long according to _pine-infused-blue-black-wolf _Blodhgarm, was that the documents were written in a range of different _two-legged-languages, _some of which used words no longer spoken in _birthplace-of her-and her-nest-mate _Alagaesia. The _two-legged-pointed-ear _ones had deciphered roughly one third of the _paper-thin-easily-ripped _documents. These had been mainly to do with the _complicated-number-ever-present _finances of the _deserted-ruined-eyesore _town but according to her _nest-mate _the other two thirds were looking more promising.

Her eye catching hold of the change in her _nest-mates-back-breaking-routine, _she bought _shiny-blue-scales _herself back to the _instant-fleeting-gone _present. Right now, her _nest-mate _was finishing up with his _exhausting-time-consuming _training with the Rimgar. Even though the _two-legged-pointed-ear-ones_ were much better than her _partner-of-heart-and-mind_, her _nest-mate _was slowly improving; he could now complete it up, if not easily, up to level three, but the fourth level he was not close to mastering. But she thought that _wise-sage -Oromis _would be proud of him at the way he had thrown himself into every challenge that his _back-breaking-exhausting _training had raised. Her _precious-little-one _was learning life lessons by the hour.

**A/N Hello again readers. Sorry for the long wait but I have had a lot of stuff on, plus the fact that my whole weekend was taken up, which threw things out of whack. I don't have much to say except that my next update will probably be in a week. Thanks for reading and reviewing and so long for now.**


	10. The Knife's Edge

The Knife's Edge

Eragon slowly strode over to the elves standing by the foreshore of the humongous inland sea which they had just crossed, in total it had taken them over a week and a half to cross the sea, and that was with the wind to their backs the whole time. For Saphira it had been a week and a half of utter boredom, the Talita was hardly big enough to support her frame let alone mass, any landing had to be carefully calibrated to ensure that the Talita would not capsize, which would be disastrous and could potentially spell the end of the dragon rider order. She was very tired and it was only through sheer luck they had avoided any bad weather, which would have made life extremely difficult.

Every part of his body ached from his training routine, he had bruises all over his body, his head hurt from everything that he had to learn and he could hardly lift his arms by the end of the day. The worst bit he thought was the burning sensation from all of the stretching that he had to do. Now he was even more wary of doing strenuous exercise than before the Blood-Oath celebration, when his back had been killing him. Now they were expected to sail up a rapidly flowing river, even though the wind was at their back it was almost certainly going to demand the use of oars, which were stashed whereabouts unknown. Everyone was going to have to take shifts, worse yet, the Eldunari refused to grant their strength as it was still recovering. The next week would be one hell of a time, Eragon had his doubts, and so he thought, did the other elves, but they kept whatever they were thinking to themselves.

*(A/N: Used to signal the passage of time, *** dictates a change of POV)

As he started his session with the oars he though back over how the two weeks had progressed since they had left Hedarth, well actually since Arya and Firnen had left them. He had not expected that they would find a destroyed city, a humongous lake and documents dating back to Du Fyrn Skulblaka. As of yet the elves had not decoded all of the documents, but the ones they had decoded the only one that gave anyone interest was a map of Alalea and a huge unfinished map of Alagaesia and the surrounding area. Most of the map was familiar to Eragon but there were a few things that stood out. One being that above Alagaesia was the forest, which was Du Weldenvarden, stretched all the way out to the top of the map. To the left the coast suddenly jutted out and strangely there was an unshaded place, close to where Murtagh was, marked with El Harim and a large question mark. Another point of interest near the place where Murtagh might have settled down was the word for fear in the ancient language coupled with a drawing of a small building. All in all, it would appear to be shaping up an interesting time for Murtagh. But that was not all; there was no sign of land beyond Vroengard even though he knew there was, in the south beyond the Beors lay what appeared to be an extent of some great plains and on his side of the map there was a strange river that forked, half of its water going to the inland sea which he assumed where they had been a few days ago, and the other half going to a 50 league wide stretch of sea. This sea was marked with a drawing of a human skull, which he assumed to mean that it was dangerous. Beyond this stretch of sea was a dotted line indicating that there might be a stretch of land, but this too like El Harim was marked with a question mark.

He hoped that they would find a place to raise the dragons within the next two months; it had already been a month and he did not want to be too far from Alagaesia, otherwise their apprentices might get lost, despite the numerous magical beacons which he had placed and yet to place. According to the map they were still a few days away from the fork in the river, although he did not think it was strange but the older, wiser elves told him that it was strange to find a river, or for that matter a creek or stream, that split in half, normally they combined to form a single, big river. From there it would be another week before they got to the actual sea, and judging from the map another week before they could reach the other side of the stretch of sea.

In addition to the session at the oars, he also had to still continue with his training which made him more tired than ever, and now in the evenings he hardly could stand up straight and think coherently, yet the Eldunari continued to push him further. Even Saphira had objected to the extreme training he was subjected too, but it was no use they didn't budge. He could now hold off Umaroth for a few minutes, but his strength, cunning and experience made him too good a match. And once he could it would be no picnic, when he would be able to hold off Umaroth consistently even if he couldn't defeat him, Glaedr told him that he would then join Umaroth's side. He now sparred with two elves at the same time or sparred with Blodhgarm who was a master with a blade. He did not just spar with swords, but a range of other weapons. The one weapon where he was least experienced with was not a Mace or a club as he thought he would be, but rather actually his fists. The elves were a lot better at using their body as a weapon, consequences of growing up with almost infinite time on their hands. His balance and flexibility were neither close to that of the elves and thus he suffered when it came to things that required precision feats.

Standing at the prow of the ship he watched the landscape slowly glide by in the golden glow of the aftermath of the suns descent towards the horizon. On either side of the river, were a thick line of trees that all but obscured the view of the surrounding landscape. Although according to Saphira, this line of trees only extend a third of a league from either side of the river banks, beyond those trees were grassy hills and knolls, stretching into the distance as far as the eye could see, or more accurately, Saphira's eye could see. Looking down he watched as the bow of the Talita smoothly cut the rapidly flowing water in half, if he closed his eyes and concentrated hard enough he could hear the slight slap as the oars hit the water behind him. At the moment there was no wind at all, so they had had to double the number of elves rowing and shorten the shifts, which made everything that little bit more hectic. Looking back at the rest of the Talita, he saw that most of the elves were either sleeping or standing like stone statues watching with glazed eyes at the landscape passing beneath their fiery gazes. To Eragon this indicated that that they were reflecting on the fact that they were going further and further away from their beloved forest, Du Weldenvarden, with every yard the ship flew across the water.

They stood on the edge of knife with every decision they had to make, one wrong move or decision and everything could collapse. For example a few days ago the elves had expressed their uneasiness at crossing the stretch of sea which was marked with a danger side, and they also questioned the wisdom of forcing the young dragons, that would eventually hatch, and their riders to cross an apparently dangerous stretch of sea. This had put them at loggerheads with the Eldunari, which had thought it was necessary for them to seek a safe place far from human, elven, dwarven and Urgal influence. According to them by definition, it included crossing a sea deemed dangerous enough to be marked on an ancient map, so that any person, whether they were a magician or not, would have a hard time reaching their dragon settlement, and would also think twice about trying to attempt their voyage. In the end the Eldunari had won out, but they had also agreed that it would be necessary for a dragon, whether it be wild or tame, to escort them over the passage of the sea. The main thing was that it highlighted the decisions that they would have to make, which would ultimately affect many people.

Arya stood and watched as the elves continuously sung, their voices carrying away to the heavens, setting all the birds in a mile radius up in delight. It was nice having a break from singing, her voice was hoarse but she could not even begin to comprehend how the elves that had started singing before her were able to cope. Her meeting with the other elven leaders, Dathedr and Fiolr among them, through scrying mirrors allowed her to rest her parched throat and drink some soothing water. The leaders were spread out through the forest's borders to direct the elves and to make sure that nothing went amiss. So far it was going well, they had completed almost completed the first part, which was the enchantment to draw strength from the forest and the land. But then again, they did have about 10 more parts to finish, which would take them, if they went right on schedule, a month.

Thankfully they did not have to do all the enchantments at once which had allowed them to schedule regular breaks, the first of which was coming up in the next few hours. It had taken a few days for the elven leaders to delve into the libraries in all of their cities and unearth the documents dating back thousands of years to the time when the dragons and elves had just finished their war and when Rhunon-elda was still young. This was no easy task however as the combined amount of documents they had to sort through was massive, and they could not get regular elves to help as some of the information contained within the sacred documents should only be seen by people who have no intent in using them, such as dangerous spells. This was also not helped by the fact that since it was so long ago they actually had use for the documents they did not know what they were written specifically about and therefore were not able to summon them with magic, no matter how hard they tried or the words and phrases they directed their search using.

Her partner, Firnen, was flying barrels of water to specific spots along the edge of the forest as to provide some relief to the elves, for that she was grateful, firstly it would raise their respect for her dragon, and thus herself, which was all the more needed in these trying times, and secondly it would make their efforts go all the more faster and successful. He was also, through his own volition, lending his strength to the elves that were on the verge of collapse. Firnen was like a welcome home gift from Du Weldenvarden for her success in surviving the numerous battles which she had participated in and for also sacrificing her personal feelings, needs and wants for the betterment of people. He was sorely needed when he had hatched for she was a broken person inside. Although she did not think before the death of her sole remaining member of her family would affect her. Afterwards she had realised that much of her feelings for the Queen were positive, even if her queen didn't share them. She was surprised when the queen, correcting herself 'mother', had died she felt a deep loss, to her it seemed unfair as it would have been to Jeod when he had seen Brom and then in a flash he was gone, but this time he was actually dead.

It was like living with the Varden when she had joined the elven army; people you had known for innumerable years had died in an instant. Yet the Varden had been there all along fighting for what they believed in, all those brave men and women dying from things that should not have happened, there they were, risking their short lives for true freedom while the elves cowered in their forest. She had met many good people in the Varden and she would never forget them as long as she lived, which could be thousands of years, even as their ancestors fickle memories forgot about them. But she did not begrudge humans for what they did, as Eragon had once said, they did the best with what they were given. At first she had rebuffed him, but the more the idea wormed its way into her mind, forcing her to think about it, the more she realised he was right, humans did an awful lot more with what they were given relative to the elves, and to a lesser extent the dwarves.

Orik surveyed the ruins of Orthiad, or Ithro Zhada as they thought of it when faced with a massed Urgal army. He lamented of what had become of this once beautiful city, it was sad to see the Dwarven cities so empty, many had died in the battles over the years and many had decided to not have children with the looming resource crisis's they had had over the past hundred years. The stone had weathered significantly since they had abandoned this place, moss and lichen and many other unknown plants which Orik knew not the names of were growing upon the weathered stones. Although he was sure if he bothered to ask around, or Eragon was here, he would soon find out.

While many of the buildings were still standing, a testimony to dwarven building skills, they had lost much of the fine details which were carved in to the blocks. Once upon a time stories about the ages would have been inscribed on the numerous stone walls but they had faded away into Oblivion. Maybe once they had had enough Dwarves they could repopulate this place and turn it into something spectacular, although maybe containing a few defences to stop dragons from attacking. Not that there would be any of those ever again, or so Eragon had assured him, but you could never be careful around Dragons, knowing Saphira he had deemed it more than likely for a dragon to suddenly lose their temper and in their foul mood destroy buildings, whether intentional or not. After all Dragons were very fierce and strong, not a good combination for those trying to make accommodate them.

From observing Thorn, albeit from a distance, Firnen and Saphira, he had concluded that strangely, female dragons were a lot more ferocious than male dragons. Not that he had much to fear from dragons now, with the only dragon still in Alagaesia to his knowledge was Firnen, and even then he was a few hundred leagues away, almost as far away as Eragon was, or where he was supposed Eragon was. Dwarven maps were not very accurate beyond their own kingdom and more so beyond the borders of Alagaesia, he could only guess at the path Eragon had taken, although he was following a river, that much he knew. The only races he knew that would have a more accurate knowledge of the area's outside Alagaesia were elves and probably the Eldunari, for the wild dragons must have travelled across much of the land in search for isolation and a good place to hunt. It would be preposterous to propose that the only good hunting locations were in Alagaesia.

Turning his head he watched as the dwarves marched slowly by, carrying the magician, who was half eaten by the now dead Raz'ac, lying on a long slap of stone, salvaged from the ruins. The slab and the dwarf were so heavy that they required four knurlan to carry it, one at each corner. Even still, it was preceding at a very slow pace, out of respect or because it was so heavy, he did not know, but he had no doubt that the four knurlan carrying the stone slab were very strong. The dwarven magician himself was very much dead as well. He faced a dilemma of what to do with his situation regarding the dwarven magician. On one hand the dwarven magician had obviously helped the Raz'ac live for much longer and allowed the monstrosity to kill numerous dwarves and humans alike, but the tortures that the Raz'ac had probably subjected him to were beyond contemplation to all those not having experienced it first-hand. He wondered what he would tell those in his letter to those who cared for him. A handy escape would be to tell the dead magicians fellow magicians to explain his death but this did not seem right. Neither could he punish the corp of magicians for their folly in allowing one of their brethren, a knurlan by blood and friend, to be dragged of by one of the most evil creatures in Alagaesia, if not the most. First it would alienate them from his rule and that could someday prove to be a costly mistake, secondly he needed all the magicians he could get to defeat the dwarven shade if it ever decided to pay a visit, not that it would make a timely appearance when all of his magicians were gathered in one place. Thirdly, they had not meant any harm, anyone would have been exuberant had they managed to kill a raz'ac.

The way they had defeated the Raz'ac or so he had been told, was that the humans and dwarves split up into 10 man teams, the magicians split between them. They then conducted a magical search using a spell that the lead magician had contrived. It had tracked the dwarven magician not the Raz'ac itself, as the Raz'ac was undetectable by magic of any sort, Orik knew not how but he did not question those more knowledgeable in the arcane arts than himself. After the groups had tracked the Raz'ac and his lonely cohort throughout the mountains for 10 days, two groups finally found the outlaws hiding away in a cave hoping to be missed by the searching humans and dwarves. By which time the other threat, the dwarven shade, was no longer be able to be seen and Orik had decided to embark on a journey to Orthiad to deal with the unpleasant situation from there. Just as one of the groups was about to wrest the Raz'ac of his dwarven prize and deal him a mortal blow, another group turned up and then they attacked together.

According to his sources, the Raz'ac fought with the strength of 10 men but he was eventually killed by a blow to the head with an axe. This mighty feat had been done by one of the few remaining member of the two groups. The sad thing was, before the raz'ac had died, he had time, in one final act of evil to turn his weapon on the dwarven magician, whom he had abducted, and to smite him in the head, delivering him to death's kingdom with a simple act of desperate murder. What a terrible ending to the tale he had thought; things were never happily ever after there was always something to darken the day, the trick he had thought, was to live in the positive. The dwarf, the one he now knew as Hefthyn, reminded him of Eragon. Both had survived numerous bad things but life had a way of dealing underhand blows to the most deserving of people. Eragon by being forced to leave, despite killing one of the most powerful, evil, people the land had ever seen. The dwarf being cruelly killed when he was almost saved. Thankfully, overall there had only been 10 killed and the same amount of injured, although many critical enough that they had needed immediate magic attention. As he walked to the command tent he admired the comradeship that the humans and dwarves shared, thinking that the only positive lining of this saga apart from killing the Raz'ac was that it reinforced the bond between men and dwarves that they had made during the fighting, well at least some of the men.

**A/N Hello again. You will have noticed I posted this early. This is because I felt that I, for want of a better word, pissed off many people with Saphira's POV, I promise I will redo it but not now so I decided to work extra hard on the next chapter. The reason I did it the way I did it was because I needed to distinguish between the way dragons think and humans think. **

**I will update the POV timeline as well. Thanks for reading, please review and have a good day.**


	11. Gratitude

Gratitude

Roran awoke with a start, it was already light and he could hear the villagers talking while they worked. Dressing into some work clothes and a pair of leather shoes, he fixed himself up in the scrying mirror, which, like every other morning, had shown nothing but his reflection. He grabbed the shovel leaning against his tent pole and started walking towards the knot of villagers centred around a big trench. The accommodation he was staying in, although it could hardly be called that, was about a kilometre away from where they intended to rebuild Carvahall. The accommodation in question was a cluster of huts, with a few basic facilities and a main base tent for meetings and other important stuff. In many ways it was like staying with the Varden again, poor, simple accommodation, lots of comradeship and a strong desire to see a goal accomplished. Although act of destroying a whole empire and the construction of a small town do not hold much in common.

They had decided instead of rebuilding Carvahall in the exact same way, they would move it deeper into the valley than it had been before. For the first two weeks since they had arrived they had drawn up plans for the town all the way out to the inner wall, and in foresight, they had also allowed the town plenty of room to grow. The design for the town was quite simple on a plan, but in reality it was yet to be seen if the plan would hold true. Although the plan had been substantially altered since the one they had drawn up on the first day, it still retained some of the basic elements. The Tierm-style tiered housing would still be implemented, the barricade slots and an outer wall. However, it was there that the similarities ended, instead of just an outer wall; there would also be an inner wall and a small wall surrounding the stone structure at the centre of town. In the outer section of town there would be some shops and structures that were unimportant in emergencies such as inns, taverns and market stall. In the inner section there would be the housing, a wide open space separating the centre of town and the most important buildings in sieges, such as blacksmiths, tannery's and carpenter shops. Finally, in the centre of town, there would be a stone structure, not a castle but neither a church or cathedral. This stone structure would be surrounded by a stone wall, and built into it would be a behemoth of various buildings. To the best of his knowledge, it was scheduled to contain a granary, armoury, bell tower, barracks, communication rooms, jail cells, a court house and all manner of rooms needed to suit the various kind of things that would be conducted within the safety of confined walls.

This kind of project would be beyond their ability to build, so once they had finished the inner section of the town and were well into the construction of the outer area they would contact Nasuada and arrange for her to send a human engineer to oversee the construction of the stone structure. Otherwise, failing that, she would secure the help of either the elves or the dwarves. Although to do this, they would probably need to pool their resources to pay the elves or dwarves in some meaningful way. But they were a long way from that, there were many obstacles in the way, principally being, as of yet, the villagers were still trying to find a viable source of stone large enough to provide for the entire town's needs. By the time he had finished mulling over their quandaries; his feet had carried him to the knot of men, standing in a large dike that stretched a few hundred meters away to the right in an arc. They were all shovelling furiously, each having the strength of two men, yet they were making pitiful visible progress. For every three scoops of dirt that they dug out, another scoop of dirt trickled in. Ten metres behind the first group, was a second group that could hardly be seen, they were widening, deepening and compacting the sides to make the moat more effective at stopping would-be attackers. Not that there would and should be any for a while, but it would be comforting to have a degree of security, no matter how small or insignificant it might be, especially after the months with the Varden where they had lived in constant fear of an unfriendly dragon appearing on their doorstep. Which became all the more scary when Saphira, and to a lesser extent, Eragon left the camp, which was a lot more than seemed necessary. They were so lucky that Murtagh or Thorn had not attacked when they were away, if they had the Varden would have been destroyed. Grabbing a shovel, he headed to the second group, which looked like it was short of numbers and started digging, careful to pile the dirt on the inner edge of the dike and far enough away to stop it from falling back in again..

Sitting down on a nearby log, next to Horst, I admired their progress, since the start of the day they had dug around 30 meters along the circumference of where they were planning for the outer wall to go. It had been back breaking work but it was deeply satisfying. All across the plain I could see numerous sticks sticking out of ground; it was like someone had tried to make a crude imitation of trees but had gotten bored at the braches and left it like it was. I was about to ask Horst why there were about a thousand sticks sticking out of the ground, but Horst had somehow read my mind and jumped to the answer without the need to ask to the question. "_The sticks, if my sources are accurate, are a rough sketch of where the streets and houses will go. According to my wife, she and some of the women, managed to get about two thirds of the town planned and mapped out. They will finish the rest of it tomorrow, when it is light." _Considering this, I reflected on the wisdom of this and came to the conclusion that it was a good idea but it was still strange to see what looked like a whole army had practiced their spear throwing, and just threw them everywhere the eye could see. "_After all those sieges I would have thought that I would become immune to pain" _Horst said, I nodded my head in mutual consent, "_yet here I am, on the verge of complaining about my back. Maybe the Varden has softened me," _I snorted_, "Yeah right, you were always soft" _I managed to say with a straight face. Horst clapped me on the back; a thumping movement that made me almost smash my own head into my knee, and said "_Someday, when you are older you will learn about what being an old man entails, ever present pain in your joints, and then you will look back and think, I wish I listened to Horst and respected him." _Laughing, I clapped him on the back in a return of his gesture and then stood up as I heard Katrina say in the beautiful voice I knew so well "_Soup is ready._"

Leaving Horst to his less than merry thoughts about how his body was coping with the day's events, I wandered over to the kitchen tent and grabbed my bowl soup, I was about to take a seat just outside of the main tent but then I spotted Katrina walking away to our small tent which was a few hundred metres away. I ran to catch up to her, and by the time I had, I was out of breath and my back was aching slightly. "_Look who it is" _said Katrina, "_it is my little trench digger, maybe he did an honest day's work for once." _Grinning, I gave Katrina a little peck on the check, and said "_I always do honest work, name one day where I haven't" _I knew one day where I hadn't but I didn't expect Katrina to remember that trivial detail, as she wasn't there. To my surprise she answered with "_Maybe when you tricked that fellow with the barges out of a few hundred crowns," _a startled look must have appeared on my face because she continued "_Didn't think I would remember that, now did you."_ I grinned sheepishly and turned my head away so she couldn't see my reaction, careful to keep the soup from sploshing out of the bowl. "_At the time, I must have thought, this is the perfect ace to hold my sleeve, so to speak, so it was then and there that I locked that little trivial detail into my memory, and now it has proved its usefulness and I even might be able to play that card again." _I was startled by the way she knew me so well and could easily guess at what I was thinking about, and this time some of the soup sploshed out of the bowl and onto the frozen ground below. Cursing, I covered the top of the bowl of soup with a piece of clothing, until I noticed that we were only a few metres away from our tent. I walked into our humble abode and sat myself down on my bed, no, our bed, and earnestly started drinking the soup, before it got too cold. It still amazed me how I had somehow managed to win Katrina's heart even though I was one of the poorest families in the old Carvahall, in the new Carvahall it was a different matter, I was one of the wealthiest, if not the wealthiest, members of the community. Katrina was watching me and knew what line of thinking I was following and she said "_It does not matter now; we have the choice to start anew and that is all that matters." _I knew she wanted to say more, but I shushed her and gave her a hug, _"I am so thankful to you, you have made my life worth living, take my gratitude" _I said and then I buried my head in her beautiful hair.

Orik walked out of the tent, he had just finished briefing the knurlan commanders upon the situation, none of them were too pleased with the result but they did acknowledge it could have been a lot worse. Not for the first time he wished Eragon was here, he would have made short work out of the Raz'ac and there would have been not as much bloodshed. Many of the warriors had left a few days ago and were on their way back to their homes, where he was sure that many of wives waited in anxious states. Well at least, he mused, he would have something to tell Arya and Nasuada when they contacted him, or he contacted them, whichever way it was around.

All around him he could see the dwarven army packing up the remnants of their temporary camp. They still had a few things to do, and which would occupy them for the rest of the day, so Orik, accompanied by a few guards of course, went on a walk into the forested mountains that surrounded Orthiad. If he looked hard enough and in the right direction he could just see the white tipped, sharp-edged points of the Beor Mountains. One day, if he ever saw a dwarven dragon rider within his lifetime as king, he would ask if he could ride the dragon and see the tops of the Beors from up close. Although it might be bordering on impolite and the dragon might refuse for understandable reasons, so the chances of it were happening were pretty dismal. His authority as Knurlan king held no jurisdiction over the dragon riders, even though may be knurlan in blood, and thus he could not force the dragon to obey his edict, and even if he could he wouldn't, dragons made dangerous enemies and he was not that rude. He should have asked Saphira when she was here in Farthen Dur to fly him up to the tops of the mountains, of course with her and Eragon's consent. But back then, he hadn't known he would come to play such an important role in the shaping of Eragon's life, he just thought they would merely be acquaintances forced together by the troubles of war, not staunch allies and great friends.

As he wandered through the forest with his guards, he began to catch the smell of smoke, tinged with a disgusting smell he couldn't quite place. He turned the guard obviously in charge; his rank was probably a captain and had probably never been addressed by someone so important, and asked "_Do you know why I can smell smoke, or am I just imaging things?" _The captain turned, startled at being addressed, "_No, your highness, you are not imagining things" _said the captain "_it is the smoke from the pyre which they are burning the Raz'ac on, that is why it smells so bad." _Now he could place the smell, it was the smell of war and carnage, of many sentient beings, much of them lifelong allies and friends, internal organs disembowelled and lying on the ground for all too tread upon. He had not thought that he would take a whiff of that smell again for a long time. It brought him back to the days in the Varden and the sieges of human cities. Thankfully, he was distracted from that train of thought by the captain adding, probably as an afterthought, "_Please call me Thorin, King Orik." _He nodded his head in consent and said "_Thank you, Thorin", _it was the least he could do to be polite, and a King, especially a Knurlan King, had to maintain a high stand of decorum with his subjects.

After a few minutes of walking in contented silence, with his five guards, their heads wearied by the unwarranted bloodshed they had just been present at, they came across the pyre. It was quite a large bonfire, but all of the firewood was on a large stone block, so the forest did not have any chance of catching alight. Now that would be a true disaster, but then again it was winter, so it probably wouldn't go on for too long, just long enough to kill the king and his guards, he thought morosely. On top of the pyre was the two Raz'ac bodies, somehow they had managed to scratch together a few scraps of animal fur to provide some clothing and decency. From here, he could just see the Raz'ac's beaks, and he thought it might have twitched, but it must have been a trick of the light.

Standing next to the pyre, keeping watch, were two dwarven guards, although they maintained a safe distance from the Pyre, probably to avoid the occasional sparks that flew off the fire and the disgusting spell that persisted through the cool mountain airs. It was then that one of the fur coats caught fire and the fire momentarily expanded, bringing an accompanying roar. Deciding that he had enough time spent inhaling the smell of burning, and hopefully dead, raz'ac, he bid the knurlan guards good day and walked away from that pillar of death. It would take the rest of the day for the bodies to burn, the dwarven guards to spread the ashes out and stamp out the remnants of the fire. By that time the remaining dwarves back at Orthiad, should have fully packed up and they would be ready to move out by twilight. He disliked the idea of walking in the dark, but he even more disliked the idea of staying out here in an abandoned dwarven city for another night, liable to be attacked by a shade and all sorts of creatures that prowled this ancient part of Alagaesia.

Thankfully, when they had gotten back to the encampment, a few enterprising dwarves had managed to catch a few deer and were currently cooking them on a makeshift spit. The thought of freshly caught, spit-roasted deer was mouth-watering enough, let alone the smell of it. He hurried to the privacy of his spacious tent, and offered a quick prayer to Guntera. Mainly about his gratitude for the wonderful meal he was about to have and allowing them to quickly kill the Raz'ac without so many lives lost in the process. After he had finished his prayer, he hurried outside, ready to have a share of that wonderful smelling deer, gratitude was one thing, but a full stomach was on a whole other level.

**A/N Hello, as you can probably guess this is probably a filler chapter (However that is not too saying it is bad and useless.) I experimented with two different POV styles, first person and third person, although I must say that writing in third person is a lot easier than writing in first person. I also tried to keep to one style of POV at a time, thank you for that constructive criticism from that reviewer, and I will continue to try and do it. I was going to do Nasuada's POV this chapter as well but I thought it was better to upload the chapter sooner rather than later. I will probably do Eragon's and Nasuada's POV next chapter. I will also update the Introduction and POV list. If you have any questions, criticism or suggestions please do not hesitate about giving reviews. **

**The Villains so far are:**

**Two raz'ac (Now they are dead)**

**Dwarven shade (Roaming around in the mountains somewhere)**

**Elven Shade (Still yet to come, it might just be a human shade but an extremely powerful one, one that is two to 3 times more powerful than Varaug)**

**Unnamed Shadow (Exists, but is not in Alagaesia and is not a threat at the moment)**

**Thanks for reading, please review and so long for now.**

**P.S. Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Inheritance Cycle, those belong Christopher Paolini, and his publishers. I do however own the characters that I will come up with and the story (maybe stories) that are yet to follow.**

**Thus, do unto others as you would have them do unto yourself.**

**P.P.S. This chapter is dedicated to the people who fight fires, save lives and police crime**


	12. Preparation and Finalisation

Preparation and Finalisation

Eragon glanced once more at the map before he rolled it up, and placed it back in its water tight compartment. It was incredibly detailed, showing numerous sections of Alagaesia and the surrounding lands and seas in exquisite detail. A pity he didn't have more time to study it or spend hours comparing its accuracies to the ones made by the elves, both in Alagaesia and on their boat. Maybe, when he had some spare time, he would pore over them a few hours, but that probably wouldn't happen for the next month so every now and then he treated himself with a quick glance at the fine artistry of the map.

There were still a few documents from the ruined city that had yet to be translated, despite the fact they had yet to find the cities name, there were already a few interesting things cropping up. It spoke of something that had to be renewed every few hundred years, similar to the dragon-rider pact but this thing had apparently going on for much longer, stretching back to the time when Dwarves, Dragons, Grey Folk and Werecats were only fully sentient creatures that wandered Alagaesia, or more accurately in the case of dragons, flew. A time before the thing had to be renewed a green flash would appear to those who were bound to it, how and where the green flash originated from they had yet to discover and he thought that it would be unlikely that they would find the answers he so desperately wanted in the remaining documents. That reminded him of Angela who had wittily remarked that if every question was itch to him, she felt sorry for him as he must be in eternal agony.

For the moment the elves had suspended studying the documents, for many of them were readying the Talita for the coming journey, and those that weren't were having their shift at the oars, for they were still paddling upstream, thankfully it was only a few hours away. He knew this because while he was doing his training, probably when he was sparring, Saphira who was flying high above them, almost in range of the clouds had spotted a bend in the river. Then, as time went by and Saphira decided to investigate it, it became apparent that it was the split in the river. At the moment, about 10 of the elves were singing enchantments to strengthen the frame that held the Talita together, while about 10 others were securely fastening down the Eldunari and the riders swords. For it would be a disaster if one of the Eldunari smashed or if one of the swords came loose and cut a hole in the hull, which could spell the end of their merry adventure in no time.

So far, none of the Eldunari had recovered from Galbatorix's control of them, although several of those were showing promise. The ones that had slightly recovered, and were not liable to suddenly reach out with their minds, and attack someone, had been transferred to the pocket of space fixed to Saphira where they were treated with more company in order to speed up their recovery. A slightly-mad dragon assailing their consciousness had already happened multiple times on their journey. The most recent was when one of the older dragons were trying to talk to a relatively young dragon, and they had accidentally said or communicated something that was offensive. The young dragon in question did not take very kindly to this and spent the next minute, while the other dragons tried to contain him, lashing out at the elven minds on board. It had been annoying not just because it was an inconvenience but also because they had lost headway up the river, the elves who were rowing at the time, instead of paddling had to concentrate on defending themselves from the anguish of the young dragon.

In an exchange some of the other Eldunari who were completely sane, the ones who had spent the majority of the past 100 years on Vroengard, were transferred to the Talita and spend time among those who were healing not so well. He was confident that they, mostly meaning the Eldunari, would be able to restore the rest, or at least the majority of the Eldunari that were formally under Galbatorix's control too sanity. At least the Eldunari who were still raving mad and furious at Galbatorix had given the elves permission to draw from their vast stores of energy. That had made a whole lot of Elves sigh with relief as many of the Eldunari from Galbatorix's reign still had much of their strength left while the ones from Vroengard had much of their energy sapped when they had to perform his own empathy spell and also shield them from Galbatorix's suicide. Strength would sorely be needed when they started constructing the dragon rider city and also winding enchantments into the very earth, just like with the Vroengard and many of the elven cities.

Putting aside his thoughts he wandered over to Blodhgarm, just before he was about to motion for Blodhgarm to join him, one of the elves at the prow of the ship shouted out with a gleeful voice "_I can see the split, it is only a mile yonder", _all around him the elves began to laugh with joy, everyone had had their fair share of time spent at the oars. It was during this time that they had learnt how tiring it could be sitting down on a stool, pulling a long stick with a dinner plate like thing sticking out the end, through the water. After he had spoken with Blodhgarm about how the other elves were going, he strode over to Yaela who was sitting down on a stool, pulling hard at the oars.

This would be his last stretch at the oars for a long time he thought as he smiled at Yaela, who had just finished her finished her shift and was now in the act of handing over to oars to him. He took the oars from Yaela, but his smile soon vanished to be replaced by a face of exhaustion, the Eldunari were pushing him as hard as ever, if not more. At least now he was beginning to get used to it and improving in all his disciplines, whether it be magic or muscle, flexibility or fighting he was slowly making headway. He was now able to fend Umaroth for several minutes, but after that time period Eragon faltered in his concentration and time after time Umaroth was able to isolate Eragon's mind with depressive ease. Thankfully, Umaroth did not seem displeased, in fact he seemed remarkably pleased the last time they had engaged in all out mind battles at the speed of thought, probably due to his rapid progress.

His flexibility on the other hand was not going so well, he could hardly complete the Rimgar's third level in a timely fashion. He had embarked on a second round of the dance of Snake and Crane every day, this one at the end of his training routine, instead of at the start. However he had only recently started this second routine recently and the results were yet to show, except for him being slightly more tired at the end of the day. The flexibility that the Rimgar had granted him had improved his swordsmanship and if he faced Murtagh now, their duel he was sure would be a slight fraction closer than it had been before the king had been killed.

It was not that Murtagh would get much use of his sword that far up north; any creatures living up there in those icy climes would probably be too small to properly practice fighting and killing with a sword. As far as Eragon knew, there were no people living as far as north as where Murtagh was probably now, not even elves, although they would have probably long ago vacated the area if they had seen a not-so-friendly dragon flying overhead. The only things he knew that were north of Du Weldenvarden were El Harim and that building marked on the map labelled fear in the ancient language. He had heard of El Harim before but he could not remember, he had a funny feeling that Brom had told him about it in one of his stories and maybe it had later cropped up when he and Nasuada were discussing things over dinner. It still felt good and unusual that he could call Brom his father. The more he thought about it the more proud he was of being Brom's son. His father had set up the Varden, severely weakened and destabilized Galbatorix's tyrannical regime, raised a friendly dragon rider long enough in hostile territory for him to be able to fend off most threats and he himself was a powerful dragon rider. Although he was still not entirely sure about his mother, he was proud of the lineage that he had.

Gradually he drifted into a trance-like state, and after an hour or so of pulling at the oars and using the alone time to mull, albeit at a very slow pace, over the months events, he suddenly encountered a lot more resistance. Now instead of at least being able to take a short rest between each stroke, he had to pull harder, faster and more often just to break even with the rivers downward pull. If the pace kept up like this for a few minutes, he would surely exhaust himself, maybe even fall unconscious. In one corner of his mind he was telling himself that they might already be at the split in the river, but at the moment it was incomprehendable as he struggled to keep his breathing even and keep in time with the other elves' oar strokes.

Nasuada wondered what to do with the man kneeling before her, on one hand he had been caught manufacturing the emperor's coins with magic, which were manufactured to such a high quality that they were able to fool nobles, as well commoners. This crime immediately warranted at least a public whipping, or even maybe a few years in a jail cell. Then again life was not that simple she sighed, there was no black and white, just infinite greyness.

The arguments weighing against Althalos being punished was that he had been caught before there was any harm done and he was one of the few magicians not in the original Du Vrangr Gata to agree with her rules about magic, despite the misgivings he might have towards her. According to Trianna, he had actively tried to persuade fellow magicians to pledge themselves to the Throne, and he knew enough of the ancient language to tell Trianna that the coins he had manufactured were the only ones he had done so far. As Nasuada well knew, words spoken in the ancient language did not tell lies, however they could bend the truth. She did not think however, that the magician knew enough words, or was fluent enough, to manipulate the truth. Especially since he had not said some of the sentences he had been instructed to say, which indicated that he was not well versed in the art of lying inconspicuously in the ancient language. He had been told what a sentence in the ancient language meant and had been forced to try to repeat it, which apparently could tell whether or not he was guilty.

He was obviously a man of many secrets, objectives that could not be thwarted by vows in the ancient language and also the possessor of great intellect, just like many who had stood before her, but when she had looked closer she had seen what appeared to be a good person. Snapping herself back to the present she shifted her gaze from one of the walls to him. "_Instead of punishing like my advisors say I should, I will let you go on three, no make that four conditions" _she said, _"Continue" _the magician said with a wave of his hand. Taking a deep breath, because she knew the conditions would aggravate him or make him refuse, she continued "_One, you will swear additional oaths in the ancient language" _to this condition he nodded, and she was slighted, but she continued after a moment, unabated in her bearing, _"Second, you will write a report to me, every three months, of the magic you have witnessed and have performed, you do not however, need to name names." _This condition, unlike the last one, he took a while considering, until after a few minutes of uncomfortable silence he consented with a short bob of his small head.

Again, she took her time before stating, "_Thirdly, you will do all you can do, without endangering yourself or diminishing your status, to promote my cause" _she thought this one would be an easy decision for him, and her expectations were fulfilled. The last condition was the one that he was most unlikely to agree with. "_Fourthly" _she said_, "Every year, from now until you lose your gift of magic or die, you need to serve 15 days towards whoever sits upon this high chair, and I regret to say that if you do not abide by this clause, I have no further options except to punish you." _After a few minutes which he spent deep in thought, and it seemed that the more time elapsed the more likely it would be that he would refuse; he finally came to a conclusion.

"_Five"_ he said in such a confident tone that he startled her, but if it was a ploy designed to put her off balance it did not work, she knew that was too little so she bargained, as if she was a little girl at one of the marketplaces. "_Ten" _she said, and she knew he was swayed, even if it was only in the slightest. He still took another few minutes before he came to his decision, but she could not begrudge him because he was signing away a significant portion of his life if he agreed to someone whom he did not particularly like. "_Done, it's a deal" _he said in a slightly dejected tone after his contemplation, she sighed with relief, she did not want to sentence him as he seemed like a good man despite not knowing what his intentions with the money he had manufactured were.

"_Farica, my helper, and Trianna, leader of the corps of magicians, are outside the door" _she said, "_Tell Farica she can enter now, and tell Trianna you agreed to my requests, she will handle the arrangements for what needs to be done. Goodbye, I hope not see you again for a while, unless it is of your own accord, otherwise I will not be so lenient" _she dismissed him with a wave of her hand. Before he was about to exit the room, he seemed to think twice about something. He turned around said "_Thank you, Your Majesty" _and bowed deeply, before he spun, strode over to the door, opened it and walked out, stopping to tell Trianna and Farica about what she asked to happen.

She saw Farica worryingly glance back at the door, as if the magician had played a trick and was coming back with a vengeance. "_Did I surprise you Farica" _Nasuada said, "_That you did, your majesty" _replied Farica, "_but you are not the only one I am surprised at, I thought the magician would refuse, four conditions seem an awful lot for a crime that he had yet to commit." _Nasuada paused for a moment as she considered how to respond to this, "_You are forgetting" _she responded "_That he would have to do 2 of the 4 conditions after he was released anyway, his reputation would be shattered. At least now he can retain some sense of honour and decency, by pledging himself even more so than others to the throne." _Farica did not look convinced but she kept whatever inner doubts she had too herself. "_I know what you are thinking" _Nasuada said "_but he appeared to be an honest man, and even though I know appearances can be deceiving I still think that he means well, even if he may have a clouded disposition. He did not gain anything more than if he had stayed in a cell for a few months."_

Farica knew that it was not the most appropriate time, with both of them having had a long hard day, to discuss the morality of letting people go, but she could not help but dismiss this idea as naïve. Nasuada caught the expression on her mentor's face but chose to ignore it, "_Let us abandon this discussion" _she said "_we can have it at a later date, for now we should content ourselves with eating that dinner that they should bring over here in a few minutes." _

After she finished checking for poisons through the use of Elva, she and Farica dined alone in the Throne room. Tonight's dinner was lamb, seasoned with a few herbs and then cooked upon a spit, it was perfectly cooked, and the only thing lacking was volume. Preceding the lamb was a salad, with various root vegetables mixed in, and marinated with some spicy condiment and something else which she could not pinpoint with a name. The only thing to mar her experience of dinner was that one of the assistant chefs had spilled the dessert and they had not had time to make another. So it was no dessert for tonight which had annoyed her, but she had pressured the person who had delivered the meals to make sure that nothing ill came of the clumsy assistant chef. After all, he was just trying to do his job to the best of his ability, and was probably mortified when he had sent the high queens desert crashing down onto the floor, not to mention the fear of retribution from very angry superiors. She was sure he would not make the same mistake again, the head chef would see to that, and that he would be more careful in the Kitchen.

As Elva accompanied them down the long stone passageway on the way to their private quarters, she thought back on the deal that she had struck with Elva. In return for Elva's services and the incomparable protection that she provided to Nasuada, Elva had almost limitless funds, service almost on par with the service that Nasuada herself received and basically the ability do whatever she wanted except for abandoning service to Nasuada. At least Elva was slowly improving her manners; Nasuada felt that she could no longer be unbalanced by Elva and Elva had yet to prove that this was untrue, which meant that Elva could not just demand things through sweet talking. Since Elva spent so much time around her, she gradually adopted her polite mannerisms, slowly at first, but with quickening speed. She was not sure whether if this was good or not, it might make her gift even more pronounced or effective, but it certainly meant that people thought more highly of her and that she did not offend as many people, which could only be good.

**A/N: Good day to everyone. Hope you enjoyed the chapter. Please review and thanks for reading. Thank you to the people who are following, whether it is me or the story it does not matter, thanks for the support. Thank you also to those numerous people I didn't mention and the people who have stuck through the good and the bad chapters. Update: Probs. 5 day. Good bye for now**

**Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Inheritance Cycle, those belong Christopher Paolini, and his publishers. I do however own the characters that I will come up with and the story (maybe stories) that are yet to follow.**

**P.S. Does anybody have an idea why when I look at the number of views the story has it says N/A?**


	13. The whims of fate

Three riders-Three paths

Eragon settled into his usual stance, knees bent, shield strapped to his left arm and Brisingr held up close to his face. A few metres away, Blodhgarm was in a similar stance, his blue-black fur rippling as they paced around in a circle. He wore a helmet, a few scant pieces of armour and held in his right hand was a shield. They were at the back of the Talita, in a specially marked zone, ready to go hammer and tongs at each other. Directly above them was the sun, lending neither side an advantage. Its rays heating up their armour so by the time they actually finished their first round it would be unbearable, stifling heat. He strove to clear his mind of all thoughts and feelings except about the fight which would be about to take place. He took in every detail he could before he overloaded his brain, the stance of Blodhgarm, the evenness of their fighting surface and things he could use to his advantage.

He slightly shifted his grip on Brisingr and it was that moment that Blodgharm decided to attack, whether by coincidence or planning he was caught off guard. Blodhgarm bounded forward, and swung his elven sword at his knees, while at the same time bringing his shield up to block any counter blow. Eragon jumped over the sword and retaliated with a short chop with Brisingr, which was almost too fast for elven eyes to follow. Blodhgarm caught the blow on his shield and instead of following up with another sword stroke, he jumped back a few paces, letting the battle settle back to its usual sedate state.

Sweating, Eragon followed Blodgharm's movements while at the same time keeping an eye on Blodgharm's eyes. An experienced swordsman might not show any outward signs of intending to attack, but it was still a good idea and he needed every slight advantage he could get over Blodhgarm, for the elf was a much more experienced swordsman than himself. Noticing that Blodhgarm was slowing down his movements to those of the speed of a humans, he did the same, all the while emptying his mind of thoughts that would distract him from the game they were playing. Blodhgarm suddenly feinted, and he flinched, cursing himself for being fooled so easily, and then, with no outward signs of his intention to attack, Blodhgarm once again bounded forward, seizing the moment of confusion that Eragon had just had.

Blodhgarm brought his shield up in a curve, forcing Eragon to block the blow with his own shield as he tried to stay on his feet. Seeing an opportunity to attack Blodhgarm he stabbed in Blodhgarm's general direction with Brisingr. Blodhgarm twisted aside, letting the blow that could have disembowelled him, pass harmlessly by, making Eragon even more off balance. Blodhgarm swung the elven sword in a looping overhand blow, the silvery metal catching some glints of sunlight on its face. Eragon ducked beneath the sword, and dropped his shield carrying arm, bringing it down to his left haunch. Using the momentum he had gained by doing so, he springed forward, in a ferocious leap. Blodhgarm was caught unawares as he fended himself from his maelstrom of blows with only his shield. Eventually, he forced Blodhgarm off his feet and onto his knees, but just as he thought he had Blodhgarm, he heard a sword whistling through the air, and to his horror he saw Blodgharm's sword skimming the wooden planks of the deck towards his shins. He jumped, and as he slowly inadvertently twisted in the air, he saw Blodhgarm get to his feet as slowed his sword arm to a halt.

After he had landed, he immediately swung Brisingr in a wide circle, crouching to the ground as he did so and sure enough a moment later he heard a sword whistle over his head and then a slight shudder pass through the deck as Blodhgarm landed behind him after jumping away from Brisingr's path. He straightened up, and turned around, making sure to bring his sword up to block any blows coming his way.

He caught Blodgharm's shield on his own, and heard the satisfying as the shields metal tipped edges banged together. Around him, he was aware that a crowd of Elves were gathering. Blodgharm's deflected shield blow went sailing over his head harmlessly, and he used the moments rest to rid his head of any inconsequential thoughts that he had accumulated.

They resumed their slow pacing, and it was then that Blodhgarm abandoned his shield, sliding it out of their pre-marked combat arena. He wondered at the wisdom at this, but seeing that he should choose the fight on his terms he bounded forward once again. He swung his sword in a looping blow, his hand sliding all the way down to the pommel of Brisingr, but no matter how fast his sword moved Blodhgarm always seemed to easily dance out of its way. After a particular viscous flurry of blows, all of which Blodhgarm managed to avoid, Blodhgarm swung his sword in a chest level arc towards Eragon. He skipped back from the blow, but then he realised its true purpose, he was too slow to move his shield arm and yelled in discomfort as the tip of the elven sword caught his shield on the inside and yanked it away, in a process that almost dislocated his arm. As he tried to recover from the surprise and pain, Blodhgarm unleased his own set of furious blows, preventing him from retrieving his shield as it slowly slided out of the combat area. Making room for his left hand, he gripped Brisingr with two hands and brought down it on where Blodhgarm was a moment ago, Blodhgarm having danced to the side. The blow however served its real purpose; to allow himself time to regain his composure. Blodhgarm brought his sword up a few moments later which Eragon blocked with Brisingr in a clumsy push, that jarred his arm right up to his shoulder.

They exchanged a few more blows until Blodhgarm gripped his sword with a tighter grip, his knuckles going white from the pressure, and pirouetted, bringing the sword through the air at an insane speed. He just leaped back in time, but at the expense of landing on his back. As he stopped himself from sliding out of the circle, he had to let one hand go of Brisingr, which was the opportunity Blodhgarm was waiting for. Stepping in range of Eragon, he swung his elven blade in a scythe like motion towards his head, a blow that would have decapitated him, regardless of wards, had he not blocked it with his own sword. Unfortunately, the block forced him to let go of Brisingr, unless he wanted to break his arm. Blodgharm's sword having come to a timely arrival at Eragon's neck, slowed down by the blow, at this range he probably didn't have enough swing time to outright kill him, but could severely injure him and then potentially kill him a few moments later. Recognising defeat, he closed his eyes and slumped, the sword fighting taking an immense toll on his energy levels. After a few moments like that, he with his eye's closed and body slumped in exhaustion, and Blodhgarm grinning his feral grin, which was still their when he opened his eyes again, and his beautiful elven sword at the nape of his neck, they returned themselves to reality.

Eragon heard in the distance Blodhgarm congratulating him, "_Well done Shadeslayer" _he said, "_You have improved since we last fought"_ but at the moment he didn't really care he just felt like going sleep. He accepted Blodgharm's hand and marvelled despite how tiring their duel was, even if you had done nothing beforehand, Blodhgarm showed no outward signs of exhaustion. "_Blodhgarm" _he asked, "_How did you get to be so strong", _Eragon could not help feel a pang of jealousy, petty as it was. "_Well" _replied Blodhgarm, "_In my early days, back when I was a naïve young elf, I wanted to become the strongest, fastest and most-skilled elf to wander the expanse of Du Weldenvarden." _As Eragon absorbed this he realised he had not answered the original question, "_But how" _repeated Eragon. "_It took a significant amount of time, I had to construct spells that would raise the efficiency of how my body operates and increase the amount of energy I can store in my cells, which is dangerous in the extreme" _he cautioned. "_Much like the dragons are doing to you at the moment" _he remarked,_ "Except I was not as powerful and as wise, so it took me a lot longer to gain an equal increase in strength." _

"_Surely, you would consult with an Elder at least" _Eragon said disbelievingly. "_Remember" _he said mischievously with his feral grin_, "I was young and Naïve. I was not the person I am now" _he remarked with only the slightest hint of nostalgia, "_I did have some problems though. When I was putting the finishing touches to my spell, making sure that they couldn't be disabled easily or kill me through some ill-worded sentence, I realised that in an error of design, I made the spells to only take effect after training, not before training." _

After a slight pause, where he collected his stray thoughts,he continued_ "So after months of intense training, I had to let my body revert to its usual state" _he said in an annoyed voice, "_I refused to alter the spells anymore, fearing that I would do some irreversible damage. So I waited for a few months for my body to revert to its usual state" _he continued, "_Then when the time was ripe, I resumed my training. It took almost three months, probably less for you" _he offered as a consolation, "_before my spells could no longer cope with the excess of muscle that I had built up. I then completed the remaining part of the spells, locking my body into its state, while also allowing me to change my appearance at the whims of my consciousness. Now I no longer need to maintain the rigours of my old training in order to keep the better part of my strength" _he finished.

"_Ah" _Eragon said, "_So you risked death or worse in order to gain more strength." _The many elves that were present, at first watching their fight and now listening to their conversation, shifted uncomfortably. Blodhgarm looked around at them before he responded, "_Thank you for putting it so bluntly" _doing a little mock bow, "_but yes" _he said, "_I did, in a slight twist of your words, risk death for power. As far as my insatiable lust for power would let me, I couldn't die after all, where would that leave me"_ he joked. Eragon laughed, and after slight hesitation, the other elves joined in, their heavenly sounds carrying away in the slight breeze. And soon enough everyone on the Talita was laughing; whether they knew what was happening was anyone's guess, but the laughter was infectious. Eragon felt giddy with happiness, a great big smile showing on his otherwise calm face, but as the elves stopped laughing one by one, the world seemed to be even more sad and depressing than before. Slowly the elves dispersed, and then finally Blodhgarm but before he did, he said "_Thank you Blodhgarm." _To which the elf responded, without turning around, by nodding his head in a single wolf-like motion and saying in a curt voice _"Shade-slayer."_

_"Poor little one" _said Saphira in his mind, "_Always the subject of things, he never gets a break does he" _she said rhetorically. "_Saphira, are you feeling better" _he said, for she had become introspective over the past few weeks. "_I am little one" _she sniffed, "_but ask any more questions and I might fall back into sadness" _she joked, with a little twinge of seriousness to her statement. Knowing that dragons could sometimes have temperamental feelings, he let it rest and rejoiced in sharing his feelings and thoughts with his life partner.

"_Rhunon" _said Arya, "_This must be first time in the last few hundred years where you have gotten outside of your enclave of your own volition." _Rhunon thought about it for a few moments and then remarked "_You are right Arya. I need to consult with Eragon about something; I need to make sure he does not forget about his promise." _She was intrigued about this promise, but her fear that Rhunon would retaliate held her back, that was until she caught Rhunon staring at her and saying "_Spit it out would you." _Unsure of how to word it without the slightest risk of offending Rhunon, even if Rhunon didn't give the appearance of caring, she bit her lip, until she gave up and copied Rhunon's way and asked the question in a brusque way, "_What promise" _she said. _"Well"_ Rhunon began, "_It was not really a promise but more of something he said in passing. He said he might be able to search for some Bright steel," _she paused as a look of exasperation crossed her face, "_and in my earnest to get a piece of work done I forgot to educate him about how to locate it."_

Just as she was about to ask Rhunon about something, an elf who was taking a break from singing ran up and said "_Drottning, Dathedr is scrying us." _She motioned, in a hawk-like movement, for Rhunon to accompany them, in her haste forgetting her sense of decorum. She quickly strode over to the small command tent, with Rhunon trailing behind her, "_I never" _grumbled Rhunon,_ "Thought that I would participate in elven politics so soon_." Ignoring the remark, she entered the command tent, and a second later so did Rhunon.

After explaining the traditional elven greetings, Dathedr who was obviously in a hurry and in a state of disarray, neglected the optional third line and instead chose to drive straight to the point. "_While I was studying in the second break that we had scheduled" _Dathedr had started by saying, "_I realised that we are missing some crucial parts to the last two steps" _ he was about to say more but it was then that Rhunon interrupted. "_Well that's all very well" _started Rhunon_, "but is there any way that we can finish it without the knowledge, or are we just wasting our whole nation's time" _she finished in an exasperated tone. "_Sorry" _said Dathedr, "_I did not see you there Rhunon. But if you had let me finish my explanation, then it would have become apparent." _Rhunon was starting to look uncharacteristically bad tempered so Dathedr cut short whatever he was going to say, "_In short, yes. However, we need the Eldunari, which have all been taken by Eragon. Consultation with our records indicates there might be a few dragons present on the Talita that might just be able to remember some of the wording, or failing that, some of the documents they have might contain the spells." _

Thinking about it, she realised that the only who would be able to contact Eragon would be Rhunon, she would be co-ordinating the elven efforts, and anyway her people would think ill of her if she suddenly abandoned them in a crucial time. She fired off a barrage of questions about the situation, "_How many spells do we need to recover? Have you double checked? How are they going to transport the Eldunari?" _she asked. Dathedr took his time in considering these questions, and no matter how much impatient noises Rhunon made he did not hurry up. Eventually, after what seemed like a few minutes he responded. "_In the vicinity of 5 to 10 spells, but they are quite long ones, and yes I have double checked" _he said in response to her question and the look on Rhunon's face_, "I am sure that Eragon and you will be able to figure something out." _

_"What" _she said, "_I was thinking that Rhunon should ask him, seeing as she is already going to ask him about something else, that is if she agrees with it" _finished Arya in response to Rhunon's snort. "_Oh, is that so" _said Dathedr in an interested voice, "_Well if she agrees with it, then I can find no case against it happening. What say you Rhunon," n_ow directly addressing Rhunon. "_Fine" _she said in an grudging, accepting tone, "_but you have to accept that the next batch of bright steel that_ _I receive, is not for dragon rider swords, but a project of my own" _she said, and then in retrospect she added "_You also need to respect my decision if I decide to relocate to the new dragon rider home. Once it is finished I might consider temporarily moving there, and I want to deliver something to Eragon personally, something to compliment his armoury." _Dathedr seemed deeply troubled by this decision, and so did she deep down, but after a few seconds he bowed and said in a smooth voice "_Of course, Rhunon-Elda." _ He then bid both of them good day, and cut the scrying connection short.

She turned to Rhunon and started by saying "_Thank you, are you sure_-", but Rhunon cut her off by saying "_Yes, I am." _Rhunon then turned, exited the tent and presumably strode out towards the edge of the forest. After a suitable moment's pause she breathed a sigh of relief and said aloud, albeit in a small voice, to herself "_That solves that problem, I wonder how successful she will be though." _

Murtagh looked away as Thorn summoned up the magical fire from his belly and prepared to melt the stone, it was turning dark and he did not want to be temporarily blinded, as if he waited for too long then the stone would go cool and it would take even more time and effort than before to sufficiently shape the stone into the shape he desired. After a few minutes of concentrated fire, the stone began to glow cherry red and the melted parts were slowly drooping down the side of the block. He turned around, after Thorn had signalled him when it was safe to do so, and grabbed a hammer resting on a rock nearby. He pulled his clothes tighter to stop any wayward drops of molten stone from landing on his skin, even though he had wards for it he didn't want risk it, especially as if a large enough drop of stone landed on his skin, and burnt its way through his muscles he might not know how to repair the muscles fully.

Although he was sure Eragon or Galbatorix, or probably even the whole Elven race, could heal it given enough time and resources, he did not know how. There were only so many things Galbatorix could have taught him in his imprisonment, and mastering the art of healing burnt muscle was not one. In hindsight, considering they were fighting Saphira, who was for most of the time bigger than them and breathed fire that would have put a wildfire to shame, it probably would have been a good idea to master healing burnt muscle. Never the less, what is done is done and there would be no good done worrying about it now. With that parting thought, he abandoned his internal battles and instead focused on the thing at the hand, namely hammering into place molten stone.

Again and again he struck at the rock, his arm jarring with every end of his stroke; slowly the molten stone began to shape and eventually just before it cooled down, the stone melded with the stone next to it. The only thing crossing his mind as he swung the hammer back and forth was that there must be another, easier way to do this than swinging a hammer. Sure he could use magic but that seemed cheating, it would make it too easy and he took a lot of pleasure and pride in what he made wholly by his own hand, not by some easy, manipulative way.

It took another two rounds of being bathed in scathing fire and subsequently being hammered with a hammer, before the stone started to look like the 5 other stones they had already done. After being bathed in fire for the last time, he grabbed a massive slab, warded from heat, and pressed it with all his might against the stone block. Slowly but surely, the molten face of the rock smoothed out, and a few minutes later after he had noticed that the stone block had cooled sufficiently, he lifted the slab.

In front of him stood the now unrecognizable block, its edges on the right side flowed smoothly into the adjacent block; you could no longer tell the divide between the two if you looked from it straight on, from up above though, it was a different story. The face of the block was now extremely smooth, and it would be impossible to get a grip on, discouraging any would-be prowlers. All in all, it was exactly what he wanted and it looked like all the other blocks, lending uniformity to his unfinished structure which it otherwise lacked. Realising that night was quickly falling, if not had already fallen according to some people, and that he was happy with what they had accomplished together today, for it was a team effort as they both needed each other, he packed up the tools lying around the place. His werelight allowing him to see more effectively than if he had to rely on just the moon's pale light. After collecting his tools, he put them in bag he had fashioned from the tough skin of a dead animal, and walked beside Thorn as they staggered, man and dragon alike, over to their cave and soon enough, they were fast asleep, for they had already had had a filling dinner.

As he roused himself and by extension Thorn, from their partly shared slumber he noticed that it was quite a pleasant day, the sun was actually shining through the clouds with some strength for once. Having considered the weather for the day, he plodded, bleary-eyed, over to his designated camp fire. Thorn, as a dragon, did not really care about whether meat was raw or cooked and also, conveniently, carried around his own personal oven. Although primarily used at the moment for manipulating stone and keeping the cave warm when it was extremely cold, it was hot enough to also incinerate anyone silly enough to cross their path and annoy them till they were naught but ashes. He gathered some kindling and firewood from a pile of wood nearby and dragged it over to his fire site. After he had got the fire lit, with the help of a few words from the ancient language, and had put on some water to boil, in a bag made out of the gut of animal, strengthened with magic of course, he walked to the back of the cave. This was where it was coolest for some reason; he thought there might be a small air inlet somewhere hidden. If he really tried, he could probably locate it, but right now he couldn't be bothered and there were many more important things that warranted his time.

The main reason though for his visit to the back of the cave was that it was where he stored his meat. Meat kept on ice lasted longer and tasted nicer; they had discovered that after about a week of storing food for future meals and to be fair, as a son of a noble and eventually the kings own right hand man, he did not really need to worry about the state of his meat. It would be unheard of in the king's court to keep meat for more than a few days and even if they did, the cooks certainly weren't going to tell anyone, an angry Galbatorix was not to be trifled with. To the side of his slab of ice, he also stored some mushrooms and herbs, after he had performed a satisfactory amount of spells to detect poisons, he was pretty sure that they would not cause unforeseen dietary complications. After that he had used them regularly on their meals and to no ill effects, although the taste, especially those that of the mushrooms, certainly took time getting used to.

He selected a rabbit and a few herbs to go with it, and brought it over to the fire near the entrance of the cave. By the time he had done so the fire was going merrily and the water in his makeshift pot was beginning to boil. Taking a hunting knife from his belt he walked outside and started skinning and gutting the rabbit, tossing the unused bits out of the way so that the other animals that wandered this place could finish the meal off. He carried the bloodied body of the rabbit back inside and chucked it into the pot, along with half of the herbs he had retrieved. He walked over to Thorn, who had fallen fast asleep again, and tapped him hard on his scaly snout. Thorns only response to this was to curl up tighter and unleash a little bit of acrid smoke, which stung Murtagh's eyes. Knowing it would be futile to re-attempt to wake Thorn he left him be, and walked back to the fire, sitting on a stone close enough to the fire for it to dispel the cold. After about 20 minutes, the rabbit was nicely boiled; he carefully extracted it from the pot through the means of the ancient language, and laid it down on small stone slap nearby, which served as his plate. He sprinkled it with the remaining herbs and cut it up into pieces using the ancient language, one half he put aside to eat and the other he carried to the back of the cave for lunch.

He sunk his teeth into the piece of boiled rabbit, it was succulent and tender, and the herbs sprinkled on it gave it flavour which it otherwise lacked. It didn't take him long to finish the meat. He wiped the rabbit juice from his lips with the back of his hand and immediately set to work. His first task for the day would be to carry the stone blocks into the positions that he had marked out. Then continue on melding the stone blocks together with the help of Thorn, and then finally completing the last of the spells to ensure that the elements could not penetrate the caves entrance. It would be a tough day's work he thought dully, as he walked out of the cave and started dragging the first of the half-man-sized blocks into position.

So far they had completed about one fourth of the first layer of the wall, on the side closest to the cave, so they still had a long way to go till it even started looking like a castle. Murtagh didn't mind, he had lots of time on his hand and there was nothing that called to him from Alagaesia, save that of Eragon's promise to allow him to live at the dragon rider city, wherever that may be. If Murtagh had laid down end to end, the length of the wall would have been about 4 Murtagh's long, give or take about a half. Thorn had woken a few hours after he had eaten breakfast, by which time he had actually finished the spells on the cave as well as dragging all the stone blocks in the vicinity into position. After realising that it might be another hour before Thorn awoke of his own volition, he proceeded to skip the melding of the stone and instead constructed and then vocalised the spells to ensure that they could forever more have good night's rest. Well at least as long as they stayed and slept in that cave.

After realising that Thorn had awaken, they had exchanged a few words, then Murtagh had had a bit of lunch and then relieved himself before starting the melding process. This time they were much more effective at melding the stone blocks together, achieving twice as much in the same time. They had also plotted out where the wall was to extend too, something they had neglected to do before. Judging from the rate at which they got work done and the rate at which they were becoming more efficient at the said work, he estimated it might only be one more day before the first layer of stone blocks were completed. From there, it might take another month before their work was finished on the first wall, although then again they were in essence constructing two small walls and then filling the gap between the two walls with shards of rock and lots of dirt.

After a suitable moment's reflection on his life, he shook himself and proceeded to prepare dinner, for they had long since finished working for the day. Not the most productive day but definitely not the least. It also finally granted them the opportunity to take advantage of a full nights rest without being awakened by some infernal noise cooked up by some of those wintry, furious storms that threatened to bring the cave crashing down on their heads. It escaped him why for so long he had not bothered to finish off the remainder of the spells, even at the expense of his well-being, which was quite tangible. He could only suppose that it was his sloth manifesting, but he felt no urge to quell it, after all he thought wryly, what sentient being for that matter doesn't experience sinful feelings once in a while. Not even his almost pure half-brother could shrug that aside, his lust for Arya being one of the many obvious sins he having showed.

**A.N. Thanks for reading and please review (please tell me especially about the sword fight, I would like to know if it appealed to anyone.) My largest chapter yet, in excess of 5000 words!**

**Update: Probs. Week/week and a half. Will update PoV timeline, summary, introduction and first chapter in the near future**

**Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Inheritance Cycle, those belong Christopher Paolini, and his publishers. **

**Thank you and have a good day**


	14. A deep breathe

Taking a breathe

Nasuada glanced up at the page, "_Here" _she said, handing him the letter, "_Could you please deliver this to Jormundur." _The young messenger took the letter from her and bowed deeply, _"As you wish, Your Majesty" _he said in a deep gracious tone. She turned to watch him depart, and just as he was about to leave the room he stumbled slightly, but then he was gone. Smiling slightly, she shook her head and turned back to the papers she was studying a moment ago.

Spread out in front of her was the drawings of the arena that they would construct in Surda, near Aberon if she was remembering correctly. King Orrin would be providing the majority of the funding for the building of it, but she was obliged to contribute a small sum, if only to build a part for her entourage to stay when watching the games. She thought it had been remarkably well done by Orrin to get an architect to draw up some plans, in less than two weeks, but then again he probably did have ample time on his hands. She wondered how he was going, after all, in many of their scrying meetings there were not any suitable moments to discuss private, well more personal, matters.

With Eragon gone, the Urgals were being a bit more troublesome when it came to organising the details, but that was only to be expected. At least they had been able to speak for more than one Urgal this time, Nar Garzhvog was fine, and indeed by Urgal standards likeable, but they needed a true representation of their race. Both too stir up debate and also get a more accurate portrayal of the circumstances which the Urgals were experiencing and see if they needed any help. Nar Garzhvog was too proud to admit it, and she supposed that that was customary of his whole race not just him, but his whole race was suffering both from the slaughter at battle beneath Farthen Dur and the subsequent battles against the empire.

At least, she thought grimly, it would hold their population growth in check for a while, that and the massive swathes of land she had granted them, between all of the clans they must now own around half the Spine, she mused. Her grim musings were thankfully cut short, by no other than Jormundur himself. "_Is this a joke or something Nasuada" _he said in a very serious tone, "_You do realise that Orrin has already captured Eoam," _his eyes narrowed as she maintained a blank look. Taking a deep breath, Jormundur said "_I distinctly remember telling you this multiple times", _he paused for a moment as he contemplated something, his brow furrowing. "_I mean no ill will" _he continued, as if he had not stopped to think about what he was going to say, "_but I think you need a break. Or at least a few days to wind down and relax have a couple of sleep-ins and have breakfast at a timely hour. Try it," _he said with a grin "_You might find that you actually like it, you never know." _

She sighed, they had been over this before and she was not going to relent any time soon, there was still so much to do before things could even remotely start to resemble the sense of control that had almost exuded from Galbatorix's fallen empire. Not that sheparticular fond of restoring things to the way they were, but it was almost certainly better to have a lot of rules that not everybody followed rather than a few that were always followed. At least nobody questioned Galbatorix during his reign, otherwise they would be liable to have their heads chopped off, but with Eragon gone there were not very intimidating figures around. Sure she could probably get a couple of Kull to knock on someone's door if they were being too troublesome, but short of drastic measures there was not much she could do. The good thing with having Eragon around, and she questioned his reasoning behind the I-am-too-powerful speech, was that he could act as a figure of justice. Nobody was going to stand in his way, least of all humans. He was now, since Galbatorix had been obliterated, the most powerful person in Alagaesia coupled with, as Orik would put it, a huge fire-breathing lizard as his sort of partner.

She returned to her original train of thought, as she saw Jormundur looking at her expectantly, not intending to tell him how far she had just wandered off topic as that would just reinforce his case. "_Fine_" she grudgingly grumbled, "_but only for a few days, I am not that bad." _As if to reinforce his point she accidentally yawned, _"Right" _he said, in a serious tone, _"Off to the infirmary." _She stopped dead in her tracks, to be fair she wasn't actually moving yet but that was beside the point, "_What" _she asked in a hostile tone, immediately regretting it, "_You didn't say anything about an Infirmary visit" _in a slightly softer tone, with just a slight hint of pleading. She expected to take her response badly but he just sighed, "_You definitely need some rest" _he said quietly, _"especially if you can't tell the difference between sarcasm and seriousness." _To her bewildered expression he continued "_It was a joke," _now she understood but a slight look of befuzzlement must have shown on her face because he simply said _"Forget it." _But she wasn't going to let him forget it that easily, "_It wasn't a very good joke" _she pressed, "_You didn't even use the slightest hint of sarcasm."_

He slowly turned around; he was just about to leave, shaking his head as he did so. "_Nasuada," _he politely replied at the level of a whisper, "_I used a hell of a lot of sarcasm on that, I will see that someone can replace you for tomorrow." _ She leaned back as he said that, the following months after Galbatorix's demise must have taken a greater toll on her, she was so shocked that she simply said "_Oh." _She thought he raised his eyebrows, but he didn't say anything more, and instead decided to quietly leave her to study her reports.

If she was going to take a break for a few days, she would have to wrap up the day's work soon, and more importantly finish off studying the reports that Orrin had sent her, as she had been continuously interrupted throughout the day with various pages coming and going. As so, she had only looked at the drawing of her quarters on the map, and the stands themselves. She had a cursory glance at the other papers, which concluded everything seemed to be order, and she made to reach for her ink pen in the porcelain stand, given to her from Orrin. She signed off on the bottom right hand corner of the pages, now they only needed the signature of Orik and Arya, or at least someone who held almost the equal of their authority. In that case, probably Dathedr for the Elves and Orik's wife, who was when she last checked, the Grimstcarvlorss of the Ingeitum clan. She saw no reason for that to change except that it was unusual to have the Grimstcarvlorss and the Grimstborith married. There was probably some conniving dwarf out there who was going to try and get rid of Orik because he probably thought that he might be too powerful or something of the like, but that was not her problem.

She must really stop this rambling, she thought, and not trusting her to do so, gathered up all the pieces of loose parchment, tucked them into a circular tube. She then proceeded to ring the bell for one of the messengers' to come and get her cylindrical tube, which only took around a minute, and then all she had to do was instruct him on what to do with it, and then she was free. "_Please make sure that this goes to Orik" _she instructed, "_Who may be back in Farthen Dur by now, I am not sure. Anyway, try to get it there as fast as possible"_ she said, intending it to finish there. But then, as the messenger turned to leave, "_On second thoughts, it does not matter how fast it has to get there, just tell him to examine it thoroughly" _she said, feeling slightly guilty at her indifference towards Orrin's plans. Just as the messenger was walking out the door she called after him, adding, "_Tell him to send it too Arya afterwards." _ The messenger nodded, but this time he did not turn around, and he continued walking. She was secretly enjoying the prospect of the notion of having a small break but she was definitely not going to tell Jormundur about that, he already had too much ammunition (**A/N: refer to note 1) **to throw at her. Just as she was about to get up and leave, someone very important walked in, she inwardly groaned, and sat right back down. Why does there always have to be something more, she thought dully.

**A/N: Note 1 (Skip this) Not sure if this word [Ammunition] was around then, but for lack of a more suitable word I will use it. Although maybe I could use munitions{as the word} but then again, it doesn't have the same ring to it. If anyone has any suggestions, please feel free to share them.**

(Point of View change)

Saphira flew the sky; her wings cutting through the air like her claws cut parchment. The sky was a bright azure blue, there were no clouds in the sky today, and the sun was shining in its full glory high above her. Her scales were sparkling like gems, for she had licked them clean in the morning. She really was, she reflected, the prettiest dragon in existence. Down below her, there was a great green swathe of forest that hid the land from sight and in wending its way through the forest was a bluish river, sending a dazzling array of sparkles. A few miles behind her, she knew, if she turned she would be able to see a ship silently following the course of the river. On board her was her _partner-of-heart-and-mind. _Judging by the time of the day, he would still be doing his training and not having lunch, although it would soon be noon.

As she glided through the air, using an updraft to sustain her flight, she caught sight of what had previously been a blip in her otherwise perfect appearance. The scale on her nose, had fully regrown, and was just the same as it was before. She probably hadn't noticed it before because she was still thinking of _green-scales-Firnen _and the life she would soon be about to have. A shiver passed through her, starting from the spot on her snout passing through her midriff and continuing all the way down to the last bone in her tail. She summoned up the _liquid-fire _from her belly and released a long jet of flame, scaring off a few birds that had curiously been flying beside her. She closed her jaw, the stream of _bright-blue-fire _drying up immediately, and snorted. How pitiful birds were compared to her beauty, even those _two-legged-ones_ called Hawks and Eagles, they could not compare to her.

She was actually kind of enjoying her time flying in the skies, she never had so much time to practise manoeuvres and it was nice to have some time to herself without having to worry about people trying to take advantage of her, or worse kill her. The only problem with flying so much was that she got so tired and since often it was not practical for her to sleep on the stern, even though there was just enough space to do so, she often had to fly ahead and find a spot to get some sleep, and then catch up when she woke up. It was not one of the safest arrangements, but they could think of no alternative at least there didn't appear to be any dangerous animals this far from Alagaesia, let alone Carnivorous animals. She was not complaining about the latter, or in fact the former, it made it so much easier to hunt things when they weren't afraid of her. She had shared enough thoughts with Eragon and was intelligent to feel sorry for them, but it was the way of life, she mused, and a Dragon, such as herself, deserved the very best of food. In any case it would be almost impossible for her to live on plants and trees; she was ill-suited to a diet of that kind.

The pace of the ship was also infuriating, not only did it not go in the right direction but it also took a long time to go an inconsequential distance. She was in a half mind, to try and pick up the ship, and then fly away to their destination. As possible as that might seem to the uninitiated, for the ship was several times bigger than her, she had the strength of a dragon which relative to her body size was impressive and she also had the strength of the _wise-old-heart-of-hearts _to access. Unfortunately the Eldunari had not approved of her, slightly mad, plan although she was sure given enough work it could be made to work. Regrettably, the Eldunari had spotted the obvious gap in her reasoning, which coincidentally she had kept quiet, and taken the initiative to point it out to her. In simple terms, it would be an absolute disaster if she let go of the ship and Saphira agreed that it was more than likely that this would happen.

She wondered what Eragon was doing now, but often when she interfered with his training or intruded on his mental barriers he got distracted and often stopped whatever he was doing, while he answered her queries. After Eragon had almost gotten himself nearly killed, she had, at the request of Umaroth stopped enquiring into what he was doing. He had been sparring with Blodhgarm, when she detected through her bond with her _little-one _the sense of satisfaction. She, being a dragon, could not hold her curiosity back for long. Eragon had been duelling with _Blue-black-wolf _Blodhgarm and according to _her-partner-of-heart-and-mind; _he had been close to defeating him for the first time. It was then, just as he was about to bat away Blodhgarm's sword, that she had asked him what he was doing.

Blodhgarm, for some reason, had taken the opportunity, not realising that Eragon was in mental contact with someone else, and had swung his blade at the nape of Eragon's neck, without realising that Eragon was not in a state to defend himself. Thankfully, when he had realised that Eragon was not going block the blow he had slowed the blow and diverted it. Unfortunately, he had neither enough time nor strength to stop his blade from hitting Eragon, so he turned the blade to its flat side and struck Eragon in the shoulder. They were not wearing armour, for some strange reason, and the flat part of his blade had shattered Eragon's shoulder.

The elves had been able to fully heal the injury for which was Saphira was most grateful, but she was banned from communicating with Eragon during his training unless he initiated the contact. Neither she nor Blodhgarm had forgiven themselves and the Eldunari had not let them forget, so she was actually kind of content with the fact that most of her day was now down-time. Sure she would have rather shared her thoughts with Eragon, but not at the expense at her being talked down and he not getting the most out of his training, never mind almost getting himself killed. It was sort of like the deep breath before the plunge; their adventure across the lands and seas was a lull compared to what they were about to undertake, a project of such behemoth that the likes of it had not been seen for several centuries, if not thousands of years.

**A/N: Thanks for reading and please review, and thanks also to Harlequin K for giving me helpful hints for the storyline. Next update: Probably a week. **

**As of 6/10/13, Chapter 1 and 2 have been updated. POV list soon to be updated. Chapter 3 and 4 updated soon as well. I think I addressed your suggestions Nix 6, the person who reviewed. **

**I have also discovered, to my irritation, that the symbol used to mark my POV changes, and time changes do not show up in the story. I will endeavour to fix that and I am thoroughly annoyed, the symbol I originally used was an Asterix but just to be on the safe side I will use underlined words in brackets. **

**As you can see, mostly a filler chapter but next chapter, I promise, will continue the story and (hopefully) significantly advance it. Have a good day, and see you later.**


	15. Legacy

Legacy

Eragon watched from the green, grassy hill that overlooked a sea that stretched as far as the eye could see. Winds whipped across the vast body before him, enticing a tempest reaction from broiling seas. He could not help but feel dismayed at what they were attempting to do; it was the equivalent of purposely tempting bad luck, and they were doing an awful good job of it. Thankfully, the elves knew what they were doing, and were spending a few days readying the ship for the journey. High above him, Saphira circled in what was akin to a beautiful dance with the sun, despite the fact that they were many miles apart.

Not for the first time, he wondered whether this was a good idea, but he had been swayed by the very arguments he had come up with to sway Nasuada. This was the ultimate barrier, a place that nobody dared go, except for the strong or the foolhardy. Eragon was convinced, and so were many of the Eldunari, that even the bravest people would quail before the might of the sea.

After four days of sailing down the river they had eventually reached the junction between the sea and the fresh water river, and it was there that they had stopped. Counting the days back on his fingertips, he realised they had been gone for almost 26 days now. It hardly felt like that, they had accomplished so much that he often thought it was months since they had first boarded the Talita, he supposed in the case of much of the elves it was. They had sailed many leagues, discovered new legends and built a small settlement. As his wandering thoughts crossed that latter achievement, he thought it might be wise to build a second settlement, after all, they, in possession of great strength and wisdom, were spending numerous days preparing for the voyage. He could clearly picture disaster in the making and he would be foolish not to do anything about it. His mind decided, he turned his back to the sea and strode down the hill towards the Talita, anchored to the shore of the river and being tended to by the elves, like ants tend to their burrows.

Spotting Blodhgarm, with Yaela standing by his side, issuing directions to the other elves, he made his way over to the duo standing on the shore of the beach. It was not until that he was a few metres away that Blodhgarm noticed him walking towards them. "_Shadeslayer," _he said, inclining his head in a gesture of respect, "_What can I do for you? As you can see, we are going well, and we will probably be ready by tomorrow, if not today." _Eragon nodded, _"That is good" _he quickly replied, "_but the real reason why I came here is because, well" _pausing to take off his gloves, "_look, I think I we should build a shelter like the one we built before." _At this, Yaela slowly turned around to face him, for she had originally been watching the elves scurry around the Talita, and said _"Shadeslayer, do you understand the brevity of this request, I, for one, do not think it would be wise to exhaust our stores of energy so soon," _referring to the Eldunari "_and I am sure many of the other elves and even the Eldunari would agree" _she finished. "_That is why_" he said, "_I propose that we spend a few more days here as to allow us to construct it by our collective self."_

Yaela frowned, but this time it was Blodhgarm who spoke, albeit in a very slow voice "_If we start right away"_ he voiced, "_we might be able to get the majority of it underway and completed by the day after tomorrow, that is, if Saphira agrees to help us" _he supposed. Saphira, who was observing the exchange through Eragon's eyes, having had nothing else to do while she watched the landscape, agreed. She voiced her consent directly to Blodhgarm and Yaela, taking them slightly by surprise, and said _"When can we start?" _

It took a few minutes to finalise the details, but in the end they agreed that the best idea was to use their original plan, except this time it would be on a larger scale and there would be a slight modification at the centre of the settlement.

Leaving Blodhgarm and Yaela to sort out the rest, he called out to Saphira and a response, in the form of a flurry of beating wings, was not long in coming. Quickly scaling Saphira's leg, he nestled himself into the saddle, and a second later she took off, the ground slightly shaking as she did. His mission was to search for some stone to quarry. He was going to use some of the spells that the Eldunari had taught him, to find and locate it, and then once he had done that, Saphira would extract it from the ground and fly it back to the yet-to-be constructed settlement.

(Time change)

Eragon was starting to get extremely frustrated, they had been out in the air for hours and they had found no large enough quantities of stone near the surface. "_Hush" _voiced Saphira in his head, siphoning his pent-up rage and annoyance away, "_I have a feeling little one that we will find it within the next hour. My gut feeling tells me so; I trust my dragon instincts, and so should you, as they have never failed us."_ To that he had no answer, but he immediately realised it was pointless getting worked up about it, no matter how much anger is present you can never wish things into existence, except for dragons he thought wryly.

Changing the topic, he asked Saphira "_What do you think we should name the city, or a state, whatever it is to be?" _She seemed to have thought about it because she immediately replied, "_Well, I think we should all, meaning the elves and Eldunari, come up with a name. And," _she added as an afterthought, "_it will depend on where we settle." _The last point confused him for a little bit, but after a moment's thought he had to agree, damn dragons and their logic. You could never outsmart a dragon and it would be foolish to try, he mused to himself. Saphira who was listening in on his thought, hummed in agreement. What followed was a deep rumble, emanating from her throat and about the same time his saddle vibrated in a peculiar fashion.

Just as he was about to comment on how her scales were shining so brightly, she asked a question, "_Do you reckon they, meaning the inhabitants of the old city, have named the rivers below us and do you reckon if they haven't named it or we can't translate the said name, we can name it after me," _she asked in a relative humble tone. He took a moment to think about this, but eventually he gave some ground while not completely acquiescing. "_I have a counter proposal, we name the rivers after something else," _he said slowly, but seeing that she was about to object he hurried on, "_but instead we will name a hill, that reminds me of you, after you and once we have reached a mountain range, we will name the biggest mountain we can find, after you." _

_"Fine,"_ she sniffed, "_but definitely the biggest one." _Though she soon relented "_Sounds good, Thank you very much little-one, it would be just very nice to have a mountain named after me." _A moments silence followed as he reflected on this, "_Sure it would be" _he said ecstatically, but then his face grew serious. "_Although I would much rather have positive legacies to my name rather than a mountain named after me. After all_, _the only form of immortality that is truly viable to last till the end of civilisation, save that of an Eldunari, and the only one available to humans, is legacy."_

"_Well"_ mused Saphira, "_I already have a legacy, and I also have an Eldunari to back it up, so sadly I think little-one, I will last longer than you" _she said, with the only slightest hint of seriousness and sadness. "_Depends on whose Legacy you are talking about, if considering humans I will be remembered for the longest" _he remarked cheekily. "_True" _replied Saphira, "_but among elves, who are immortal, I will be remembered for the longest. Among dwarves however," _she remarked,_ "I think we are both equal in terms of legacy, my reparation of the Star Sapphire, or Isadir Mithrim as the Dwarves would call it, and your acceptance into a dwarven clan, is something for us to be truly remembered for." _

Just as he was about to argue his side of the story, a buzzing sounded in his ear, for a moment he was confused but eventually he realised what it was. The spells he had constructed to automatically seek out quarry-able quantities of stone, had found some. About time, he thought, it was already starting to get dark and soon enough they wouldn't be able see without the aid of magic, for the clouds were letting all but the faintest rays of light through. As Saphira landed on the ground, he could hear the crack of thunder in the distance, it sounded like it was coming from the sea, and at the same time a cool breeze sprung up. Shivering from both the cold and the thought of being out on the sea tonight, he wrapped his jacket closer. Casting a werelight, and allowing a Saphira a few moments to dig away the dirt, he saw there was some marble with mixed quantities of normal stone, and the marble even looked like it was in decent condition, there was nothing that magic couldn't fix up. "_See," _said Saphira smugly, "_Dragon instincts are always right. It's part of our legacy" _she finished, with the air of maddening superiority.

(POV change)

Murtagh glanced up at Thorn, his glittering lifelong partner, carrying a huge stone block between his two forelegs. He groaned with annoyance, all around him were stone blocks that he needed to cut up; things always took so long when not using magic. At least they had successfully completed the first layer of stone all the way around the keep, and now were halfway through the second, although it had been almost three weeks since they had laid the first stone. They were becoming very efficient at it, but he feared the higher they went up the longer they would take. Although then again that was a long time away, and it was not like he was going anywhere. That reminded him; he needed to stock up on food again.

Thorn leaped over to him, the ground shuddering as he took off and landed a second later. Murtagh, knowing what was about to happen, wisely turned his back to the wall, and he was not a moment too soon. For as soon as he did so, the ruby red dragon that was standing not ten metres away, unleashed a harsh stream of red flame. After a suitable minute, he turned back to face the wall which was now glowing cherry red, and grabbed his favourite hammer. He slogged away at the stone block, every blow releasing some of his anger at the world, and soon enough it was reasonably flat. Thorn then repeated the process of bathing the block in ferocious fire, but this time instead of hammering the rock into place he grabbed a stone slab and smoothed out any dents or bumps. By the time he was finished with the stone slab and the rock had returned to its previous colour, a dull greyish-black sort of tone, it fitted seamlessly into the blocks to the right and below it. The wall was perfectly smooth and Murtagh intended to keep it that way, lest he suddenly decided rough was the way to go.

That was the way the majority of his days up here would go. He would get up early, split some stone blocks and hunt a few animals. Once he had done that he would have lunch, the smell of which was mostly enough to wake Thorn of his own volition. After they had had lunch, Thorn often went away to hunt some more, or on the other hand he just flew to the quarry of stone they had found and brought some more stone over. Then they melded the stone into the wall, in a team effort, and by this time they were both exhausted. It was then off for a quick dinner, and then straight to sleep.

Murtagh was actually quite happy at this setup as it meant that once he became proficient at the things and he could do them without thinking, which he supposed was what they called muscle memory, he could think of other things. For example, the other day he had managed to figure out a spell to successfully funnel dangerous gases out of his cave. He had put that spell to immediate use, and in a few short hours the air in the cave was already starting to be a lot more breathable, but most of the time he used to think about philosophical questions. He was under the impression that he should meticulously pick apart everything he had done in his life, good or bad, and analyse it. He would then write it and his findings down in a journal so that he would able to see how his life could improve, at least that was what he thought it would do. It might, he had reflected, have completely destroyed his own personality but by the time he was finished, he was convinced, that he would be a much greater person. Although he still strived to keep many of his old values and memories, as to not forget who he was or what he had done, especially the ones involving Tarnac, his old mentor and friend.

He wondered, once he died, what type of legacy he was going to leave. He hoped it would be a good one and people would not remember him as a person who served under Galbatorix, but rather as a free man who once served alongside the Varden. Although knowing humans, he thought that this would be extremely unlikely. Once he joined the dragon rider order, and most likely served under Eragon, it would be extremely probable that he could redeem his name and eventually become someone who was respected rather than feared. At the very least, he would like to clear his name of the foul deeds both he and his father committed, whether forced or otherwise. He hoped Nasuada, even though he might never see her again, would understand what drove him. One day he hoped, she would see his legacy be restored to a more positive note.

**A/N Sorry about the delay, been extremely busy but will post another chapter within 3 days. Please review. Yours sincerely,**

**WiseBeyondYears.**


	16. Manipulation

Manipulation

Eragon watched as Blodhgarm manipulated the water with his hands. Although there was not much water he was manipulating, not even enough to fully satisfy his thirst, it was a pretty damn impressive sight. Although he was eager to learn about doing it, he was slightly nervous, not in the least due to his late masters drilling into him that one should never unnecessarily use spells without vocalising their intentions. He paid careful attention to anything Blodhgarm said, as he did not want to disastrously botch up his first try despite how hard Blodhgarm said it was.

The water glistened in the air, throwing off dazzling sparks of sunshine in every direction every few seconds. It was a beautiful moment, with the only clouds in the sky receding away into the thin line that was the horizon, and the sun still high in the sky, warming everything else up. It was now well and truly into spring, and day by day he saw more buds blooming on the various flowers and plants that he saw scattered across the landscape. Yet he was deeply uneasy, only a few hours ago it had been well and truly raining, and truth to be told Eragon would not have been surprised if it snowed or hailed. Then, like it was magic or something, the clouds stopped dumping their load and the ever prevalent breeze, lifted them up and away till they were nothing more than specks in the distance, about to be consumed by the Horizon. The only thing, he had concluded from this strange weather occurrence, that there was a crosswind (**A/N: Slight Artistic License, not the real use of the word I think.)** somewhere and that was apparently responsible for the sudden change in weather conditions.

Eragon was still not exactly sure what a crosswind was, but the definition that had been given to him by Blodhgarm was simple enough in theory, but hard to visualise in his head. While there was a main wind that blew most of the time, bringing the majority of the weather conditions, there was also a slightly less strong breeze trying to go perpendicular. Once the main wind had weakened enough, the secondary breeze took over because there was a greater pressure difference between where the air was highly concentrated, and where it was considerably less dense. That was apparently why the breeze was able to suddenly swing to a whole different direction in less than a minute, and within an hour, dramatically change the weather conditions.

It was this line of thought that led him to being completely unprepared when Blodhgarm sent the water spinning a spherical ball, which was making a beeline straight for his chest. Without thinking, he muttered the words to stop the ball of water from colliding hard with his chest, but did not have enough time to utter the words to stop it from splashing all over the lower part of his robes, as well as his shoes.

Blodhgarm chuckled at his mistake, but pushed him no further. It was not until a few moments later that he realised that Blodhgarm wanted him to raise the water using only his mind. Gathering the remaining shreds of his concentration from his battered and bruised body, he wiped every thought from his mind save that of the water rising. After he had successfully accomplished holding this thought for a few seconds, he accessed the ever present nub deep in the back of his mind and broke the barrier, with well eased practise. He smiled as he felt the magic course through his veins, and with all his remaining willpower singlehandedly concentrated on the water rising up to chest level.

Slowly but surely, the water rose up out of the ground till it reached his chest and hovered. It was remarkably more tiring than raising it by words, but he supposed that eventually it would be just as easy as using the ancient language. But till then, he would be even more exhausted from his training

Slowly the hours went by in a haze of suffering and exhaustion. Blodhgarm, far from being satisfied with his success at manipulating water, went on to teach him the remaining three of the four elements. Eragon supposed were the main Elements that were most common, and most useful to master. Fire proved relatively easy, but air and ground bucked his expectations and proved notoriously hard. Even harder, he reflected, than water. He supposed he had a natural affinity with fire that was probably why he was able to control it so easily. Manipulating Earth was probably the hardest, but that might have only been because he did not see the use of being able to do so.

Finally, having mastered Earth and Air, he collapsed on the ground in a heap, not even caring about what the other elves thought of him; he was beyond that now, all he wanted to do was sleep. After a while, he slowly became aware of Saphira feeding him a small amount of Energy. Realising that he was being a bit over reactive, he got up with the strength that Saphira was feeding him and walked over to the Talita. On the way he climbed over the stone wall that Saphira had helped build, and then after a few moments passed by the building which the Elves had finished not just one day ago. The only thing changed from their design of the other settlement, apart from the orientation, was the fact that the statue in the centre of the settlement. It was not of Brom and his dragon, Saphira, like the last settlement, but rather of Oromis and Glaedr, about to take too the skies like he had so often seen them do in training.

This time, they had all the memories they needed but still, they continued to rely on Glaedr for advice on spell-casting and manipulating the stone with magic, which infuriated Eragon to no end. No fault of Glaedr's of course, but he was annoyed that he still had to rely on other people to do things for him; he wondered when it would end and if he would be ready to train the first pair of dragon-riders mostly by himself. He shook himself, what was coming over him. It was like a storm that previously lurked on the horizon, was now shaking at the very foundations at his mind. He felt tired, stressed and most of all, despair, at what they still had to accomplish.

He boarded the Talita by means of a gangway, suspended from the ship to dry land, and pegged alongside it was a long rope of matted hemp, no doubt strengthened with magic. The gangway itself was a thin piece of pine wood, shaped and sung from the trees they had encountered on their journey. It was springy beneath the foot, but offered the surest footing and even if he was drunk as well as being tired, like he was now, he doubted that he would be stumble on it. At the stern of the ship, was a small cupboard that contained some snacks. Eragon grabbed a handful of nuts and dried fruit from the bowl, and settled himself down on a nearby chair, which overlooked the blue-green sea. Water threw off the sun, like diamonds throw off the light of a thousand bright candles.

Out, a few hundred metres off the shoreline, wheeled a group of birds, which he could not identify through his vision, and he was too tired to bother to use magic to enhance his vision. It was thankful, that he did, for a few seconds later he spotted them heading back towards the shoreline. They were cormorants of some kind, but they had different features from the other birds he knew. While the few ones he had seen back in Alagaesia had small and blunt claws, these ones had long and sharp ones, which could almost be called talons. Which led him to believe that they might be a different species altogether, even though they shared some similar traits and that there were many species that were uncatalogued. For even in Du Weldenvarden, where the Elves' were all nature lovers, there would be plentiful amounts of undiscovered species, and indeed some that will never be.

It was sad to think; that in all the distances they had travelled they had yet to discover an actual living settlement, plenty of deserted or destroyed ones though. He had not been expecting to find anything, that would be foolhardy, but it could be said that he had been hoping that there had been a civilisation, or even a small town or city, that remained untouched by Galbatorix's rule. Alas, all looked like it had been deserted and destroyed, although Eragon had yet to find any trace of damage that indicated a dragon had taken part in the battles. As the cormorants flew over his head, and the storm clouds on the horizon came ever closer, darkening as they marched ever onwards, he was struck by a sudden thought. It was like a pre-eminent bolt of lightning had hit him, the realisation zapped him from head to toe and he was actually energetic for a few seconds.

Searching for Blodhgarm with his mind, he soon came across his distinctive mind. Deep, melodic like music drifted from his thoughts, enticing Eragon to come closer, ever closer into the spider's web. Mortals who strayed into the minds of the Fair Folk, had much to lose and nothing to gain, not that he was mortal, but Eragon was not inclined to test the resolve of his sanity. Especially after what had happened to Captain Garven those many months ago, Nasuada had mentioned that he was still dreamy-eyed, recovering from his brief foray into Elven minds. Brief as it had been, it was rather like the passing of the day compared to year he had to recover. On a far more interesting note, she had also taken the initiative to tell him that the man, who he had seen after the Burning Plains battle, was in a specialised infirmary in Illirea. He still had the ability to see, what Eragon supposed were, items and people of magical influence.

He was very curious to see what use Nasuada would put him to; after all it was a very rare and special gift that he had been granted. Although it also did come at the cost of not being able to see normally, which was probably a downside more problematic and distasteful than anyone would willingly accept for the gift. Accept he did not though and now, he thought glumly, its legacy, whether good or bad, would be stuck with him for the rest of his life. He liked speaking with Nasuada, she understood him and they were both about equal in terms of power, now that Eragon was not in Alagaesia to undermine her recently acquired rule. Still, for a person who had only been a queen for 7 months, albeit one with lots of beforehand experience, she was doing remarkably well. She had told him of the things that she had had to solve and the problems of Galbatorix's lasting legacy she had addressed. There had been a few more attempts on her life, but they were gradually becoming fewer and further in between. Elva had managed to keep Nasuada from falling into a majorly injured state; there had been a few broken bones and even a torn muscle.

After asking Blodhgarm whether they would be ready to leave after the storm passed, and if they could, to which Blodhgarm agreed and said yes, he reclined back in his chair. A few minutes later, just as he was about to doze off, with the sun beating heavily on his sweating brow, he heard an elf in the distance shout. "_Rhunon" _he shouted merrily, his face showing a carefree smile, "_its Rhunon." _At the same time, a loud buzzing sounded in his a few seconds of waiting for Rhunon to appear, for the elf sounded so joyous that he thought that she might be actually here in person, he realised, slightly crestfallen, that she was scrying their scrying mirror. He turned the mental alarm off in his head, and confidently strode over to the elf that was near the scrying mirror.

**A/N: Sorry about the late update, been extremely busy. Hope to get an update in the next week and a half, as I am going on an expedition for a week. Please review, and have a good day. **


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